The Department of Mysteries' Secrets of Battle
by ZRSFizzyBongs
Summary: What really happened in the Department of Mysteries that year? Perhaps, for once, you wish to see through someone else's eyes ... Ma go up to 15 points of view but they will all tell a different story. I hope you enjoy!
1. Hermione

**Planets, Brains and Curses** Chapter One: Hermione

From the moment they entered the Department of Mysteries, Hermione felt that it wasn't right. She was quite sure Sirius wasn't there, and only became more sure every minute. She wasn't afraid – they had done more dangerous things. Harry obviously thought they would meet some Death Eaters who would be standing guard over Sirius, but Hermione didn't believe that at all. She hadn't been able to stop him, so of course she had gone with him. But it just wasn't right. A few minutes ago, she had thought that the worst thing that could happen was being found by a Ministry worker (although there didn't seem to be any Ministry workers around – they hadn't met anyone on their way in – which was even more unsettling in some way). And now, while Harry was looking at the glass ball with his name on it, she started to feel less and less comfortable. She really should have felt more at ease in this room. This room had structure. Every shelf, every row was the same. Every glass ball was labelled, every row had a number. This was much better organized than the rooms they had been in before. But the feeling was now very strong: something was horribly wrong.

Hermione saw Harry stretch out his hand to the dusty glass ball. She saw him touch the ball, close his fingers around it and lift it from the shelf. Nothing happened. Hermione slowly started to relax, when suddenly someone spoke.

"Very good, Potter," a man's voice said. "Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."

Hermione turned around and saw half a dozen black-robed figures standing before her, wands pointed right at her and her friends. Death Eaters. She quickly turned the other way, but several more of them appeared where she turned.

Hermione was paralysed with terror. She didn't seem to be able to move, or to hear properly. Harry seemed to be talking to the Death Eaters, but only bits of the conversation found their way into Hermione's head. She had never been so terrified in her life. It was a miracle that Harry was able to speak and hold the Death Eaters off. This was exactly was he was such a good teacher for the DA. He just knew what to do.

Hermione tried to listen to the conversation, but her ears still didn't work properly.

"... give me the prophecy ..."

"... difference between life and dreams ..."

Suddenly, Hermione's head became a little bit clearer. The difference between life and dreams? Was the vision Harry had had not true after all? But now they were trapped. Hermione couldn't see a way out. Her mind became cloudy once again. She watched Harry duel shortly with one of the Death Eaters. Harry just managed to keep the glass ball in his hand. This seemed to annoy another Death Eater, who began to shout. Hermione wished he wouldn't. It didn't sound right, here in this room with thousands of dusty balls. But on the other hand, it was probably a good sign if the Death Eaters disagreed with each other.

Then she heard something that made her heart stand still.

"... take the smallest one ..."

She moved towards Ginny, and felt that the others also closed in. She tried again to listen what was said. It was very important she knew exactly what was happening.

"So," said Harry, "what kind of prophecy are we talking about, anyway?"

Prophecy? Was it possible the glass ball was a prophecy? A real one, then, not like Professor Trelawney made in her classes. That was interesting. Then this whole room would be full of prophecies.

"How come Voldemort wants it?" asked Harry.

A few Death Eaters seemed disturbed that he had used their master's name.

"You dare speak his name?" whispered one of them.

"Yeah," said Harry. "Yeah, I've got no problem with saying Vol–"

"Shut your mouth!" shrieked the Death Eater, who was, Hermione realised now, female. "You dare speak his name with you unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood's tongue, you dare–"

"Did you know he's a half-blood too?" said Harry.

Hermione moaned. Why did he have to say that? It was not a good idea to make the Death Eaters even angrier.

Harry carried on. "Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad a Muggle – or has he been telling you lot he's pure-blood?"

The female Death Eater lost control. "STUPEF–"

"NO!" That was another Death Eater, who deflected the Stunner. It hit a shelf instead. Several glass balls shattered. Two figures who looked like ghosts, had come out of the balls and began to speak. Hermione guessed the figures were Seers, and were repeating their prophecies. She tried to listen what they were saying, but the two Death Eaters were again fighting with each other. Only after the ghosts of the Seers had vanished, they stopped shouting.

"You haven't told me," Harry said, "what's so special about this prophecy I'm supposed to be handing over."

"Do not play games with us, Potter." Something clicked in Hermione's brain. That voice was Lucius Malfoy's!

"I'm not playing games," said Harry.

Hermione was wondering if he was really interested in the prophecy, or that he was just playing for time. Suddenly, someone stepped on her foot. She realised in time it was Harry, and managed not to shout.

"What?" she whispered in Harry's ear.

Malfoy talked to Harry, but Hermione wasn't listening any more. She concentrated on Harry. He definitely had a plan. But he was distracted by Malfoy.

"What?" Hermione whispered again. And while the Death Eaters laughed, Harry spoke very, very softly.

"Smash shelves when I say _now._"

Hermione understood. Her brain was working again. She now had a goal. She nudged Ginny in the ribs.

"Smash the shelves when Harry says _now,_" she whispered in Ginny's ear. "Use _Reducto_. Tell Ron."

Ginny nodded and turned towards Ron. Then Hermione told the same to Neville, who passed it on to Luna. They all gripped their wands tightly, ready to act. They didn't have to wait long. After about half a minute, Harry yelled "NOW!"

Hermione raised her wand, and shouted "_REDUCTO!_" while she heard the others around her do the same. The shelves exploded. Everywhere glass shattered and ghosts appeared. For a moment, Hermione just stood, having accomplished her task. Then Harry grabbed her robes and pulled her forwards. Just in time, because behind her some shelves had collapsed.

Ron, Ginny and Luna sprinted to the end of the row and disappeared from sight. A Death Eater came out of nowhere and grabbed Harry's shoulder, forcing him to stop running. Hermione pointed her wand at the man and yelled, "_Stupefy!_". The Death Eater promptly disappeared from sight and Harry started to run again, Hermione sprinting after him. At the end of the row, Harry turned right and Hermione followed. She saw Neville trip just behind her. She quickly grabbed him, and he just managed to stay on his feet.

"Come on, now, Neville!" Hermione yelled. "Come on! Run!"

Harry, Neville and Hermione went through the door they had come through earlier. Harry shut the door, and Hermione did the only thing that made sense. "_Colloportus!_" she gasped and the door sealed itself magically.

"Where – where are the others?" Harry asked. Hermione looked around and saw that Ron, Luna and Ginny weren't there.

"They must have gone the wrong way!" she whispered. What if they had hit a dead end, and the Death Eaters had captured them?

"Listen!" Neville whispered suddenly. Harry put his ear close to the door, and Hermione heard footsteps outside. Lucius Malfoy was saying something. He seemed to be giving orders to the other Death Eaters. No doubt they were looking for them.

"What do we do?" Hermione asked Harry. Harry always knew what to do, she assured herself. She tried to come up with a plan herself, but her mind was strangely blank.

"Well, we don't stand here waiting for them to find us, for a start," Harry answered. He was already in motion. "Let's get away from this door."

They ran to the door, but before they had reached it, something – or someone – collided with the door behind.

"Stand aside!" said someone. "_Alohomora!_"

Hermione followed her instinct and dove under a desk just in time. Two Death Eaters walked into the room.

"They might've run straight through to the hall," one of them said.

"Check under the desks," said the other one. The Death Eaters were now at the desk Harry was lying under. Harry aimed his wand, and shouted "_STUPEFY!_"

One of the Death Eaters fell at the ground. Hermione tried to get out from under her desk to Stun the other one, but that was a mistake. The remaining Death Eater was already pointing his own wand at her.

"_Avada_–"

Hermione was paralysed with terror. But Harry grabbed the knees of the Death Eater and he lost his balance. There was a crash to Hermione's right, as Neville overturned a desk and aimed his wand.

"_EXPELLIARMUS!_"

Neville had disarmed both the Death Eater and Harry. They both stood up and ran to their wands. Hermione used the distraction to get to her feet. She aimed her wand, just as Neville jumped in her path.  
"Get out of the way, Harry!" he yelled. Harry flung himself sideways, and Neville shouted "_STUPEFY!_"

But he missed. The Death Eater reached to his wand and picked it up. He turned, but his mask had slipped and covered his eyes. Harry dove under a desk again. The Death Eater ripped the mask off.

"_STUP_–" he shouted, but Hermione was quicker.

"_STUPEFY!_" she bellowed and hit the Death Eater, who fell into a jar with his head. For an instant, she wondered about that, as heads usually didn't sink through solid glass, but she decided she didn't care.

"_Accio wand!_" she yelled, pointing at Harry's wand, which promptly flew towards her. She caught it and threw it back to Harry.

"Thanks," Harry said. "Right, let's get out of –"

"Look out!" shouted Neville.

Hermione raised her wand, but then she saw what Neville was staring at. The Death Eater's head was shrinking until it was a baby's head. Then it was swelling again. Suddenly, Hermione understood what this room was about.

"It's Time," she said. "_Time_..."

There was a shout from another room, a crash and a scream.

"RON?" Harry yelled. "GINNY? LUNA?"

Hermione was still looking at the Death Eater with his head in the jar. It shrank to a baby's head again, and then the Death Eater pulled it out.

"Harry!" Hermione screamed, for the Death Eater was walking towards him. Harry turned and ducked as the Death Eater swung his arm out. Hermione suddenly realised that he now had a baby's brain, and therefore didn't have a clue what he was doing.

When Harry raised his wand, she seized his arm.

"You can't hurt a baby!"

Harry looked at her for a moment, and seemed to decide that the footsteps coming nearer, in the Hall of Prophecy, were more dangerous than the baby Death Eater.

"Come on!" he said. They ran to the door which led to the circular hallway, but two more Death Eaters burst through it. Harry turned left, and Hermione grabbed Neville and followed. They entered a small office.

"_Collo_–" Hermione started, but she was cut off when the Death Eaters smashed the door open and stepped through it.

"_IMPEDIMENTA!_" both of the masked men yelled. Hermione was knocked backwards and smashed into a bookcase. She felt one book after another fall over her. Beside her, she heard two other crashes, which meant that Harry and Neville were hit by the curse too. Hermione tried to move a few books so she could see what was happening.

"WE'VE GOT HIM!" yelled one of the Death Eaters. "IN AN OFFICE OFF–"

"_Silencio!_" cried Hermione. The Death Eater was cut off abruptly. The other Death Eater moved towards Harry. Hermione raised her wand, but Harry was already shouting "_Petrificus Totalus!_"

The Death Eater fell on the ground face down. Hermione lowered her wand.  
"Well done, Ha–" she started to say, when suddenly she saw the Death Eater which she had hit with her Silencing Charm, make a movement with his wand. A purple jet of light flew through the air. Hermione uttered an "Oh!" of surprise when she realised that there were hexes you didn't need to say an incantation for. Then she felt excruciating pain at her chest and everything went black.


	2. Luna

**Planets, Brains and Curses** Chapter Two: Luna

Luna found this fascinating. This whole Department of Mysteries, with all its rooms full of uncommon objects, was so appealing. And now she and her five new friends were in a room full of tiny glass balls. Really intriguing. Harry had stretched out his hand to the dusty glass ball with his name on it. Hermione and Neville didn't seem to be so sure he should touch it – they both looked extremely frightened. But there were so many balls, it couldn't hurt if Harry picked up one.

Luna saw Harry lift the ball from the shelves. He looked at it apprehensively, as did Luna. Nothing happened. She had begun to lose interest in the glass balls when a slow, drawling voice spoke.

"Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."

Luna looked to the right and saw several black figures appear. Ginny gave a gasp of horror, and Luna understood. They had a very good reason to be afraid. These were Death Eaters. On her left, another half a dozen of them had appeared. All of them had their wands lit and pointed towards the six Hogwarts students.

"To me, Potter," repeated the drawling voice. The voice sounded familiar to Luna, but she didn't know where she had heard it before.

"To me," the same voice said again. Luna didn't find the man remotely frightening. Why hadn't they all been hexed on the spot? These guys were supposed to be dangerous, weren't they?

"Where's Sirius?" Harry asked.

The Death Eaters laughed, which made them even less frightening. Death Eaters killed and tortured, but didn't laugh! At least, that was what Luna was told. Clearly, in reality, they had forgotten how to kill, and laughed instead.

"The Dark Lord always knows!" spoke a female voice.

"Always," agreed the drawling voice. "Now, give me the prophecy, Potter."

"I want to know where Sirius is!" Harry insisted.

Luna still didn't know who this Sirius was. He wasn't Stubby Boardman, that much was clear. Sirius was someone real. Luna could see he was really important to Harry. For this reason, she didn't really care who Sirius was, as long as he remained unharmed.

"I want to know where Sirius is!" repeated the female Death Eater mockingly.

"You've got him," said Harry rather stubborn. "He's here. I know he is."

"The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo," said the female Death Eater in a baby voice, confusing Luna. What did a little baby's dreams have to do with Sirius?

She saw Ron trying to raise his wand unnoticed.

"Don't do anything," Harry muttered to him. "Not yet."

The Death Eaters seemed to find it hilarious that Harry was giving instructions, but Luna didn't. She had come to respect Harry's leadership so much that the order almost seemed to comfort her, in a way. Yes, Harry was quite an amazing person, and not just because of his leadership abilities. He had accomplished some great things in his life. He had never done anything like fight off Heliopaths, but Acromantulas and dragons came pretty close. There was no way someone like Harry would let a few Death Eaters, who so far had showcased nothing but their ability to perform _Lumos_, get in his way.

Then the drawling voice said, "Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."

Well, that could be interesting.

"Go on, then," said Harry. He raised his wand, and Luna did the same. But no one acted.

"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt," said the Death Eater with the droning voice.

Harry laughed.

"Yeah, right!" he said. "I give you this – prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"

The female Death Eater made a sudden movement and shrieked: "_Accio proph_–"

"_Protego!_" Harry interrupted, deflecting the jet of light.

"Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter," the female Death Eater said. "Very well, then –"

"I TOLD YOU, NO!" the man with the nasally voice bellowed, and suddenly Luna knew where she had heard it before. This was the way Draco Malfoy always spoke to his friends, Crabbe and Goyle. This Death Eater was probably his father. Lucius Malfoy had a great deal of influence at the Ministry. Apparently Luna's father had been right in what he often wrote in _The Quibbler_: the Ministry was corrupted.

The female Death Eater pulled off her hood. Another one identified. This was the escaped convict Bellatrix Lestrange. Luna had read about her in the paper, a couple of months ago.

"You need more persuasion?" she asked. "Very well – take the smallest one. Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I'll do it."

Luna and the others closed in around Ginny. Luna began to wonder about Bellatrix Lestrange. People sometimes said Luna was mad, and maybe it was true, but she was nothing compared to this Death Eater. Bellatrix was unquestionably raving mad.

"You'll have to smash this," said Harry, holding up the glass ball, "if you want to attack any of us. I don't think your boss will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?" He waited a moment. "So, what kind of prophecy are we talking about, anyway?"

That was exactly what Luna liked to know. It seemed that the Ministry stored prophecies in little glass balls. Maybe it would make a nice story for _The Quibbler_.

"What kind of prophecy?" Bellatrix Lestrange repeated. "You jest, Harry Potter."

"Nope, not jesting," said Harry. "How come Voldemort wants it?"

Luna had heard Harry using the name before. It wasn't really a big deal, but then, her father didn't say the name. And her father was usually right about everything. The Death Eaters were now hissing and looking afraid. Luna thought it was odd they reacted like this. Wasn't You-Know-Who supposed to be their friend?

"You dare speak his name?" whispered Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Yeah," said Harry. "Yeah, I've got no problem with saying Vol–"

"Shut you mouth!" shrieked Bellatrix. "You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with you half-blood's tongue, you dare –"

"Did you know he's a half-blood too?" said Harry lightly. "Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad was a Muggle – or has he been telling you lot he's pure-blood?"

Luna made a mental note to tell her father about this. It would most certainly make a nice story.

Bellatrix Lestrange seemed to loose control. "STUPEF–"

"NO!" roared Lucius Malfoy, again sounding very much like his son whenever Crabbe or Goyle were about to do something stupid. He deflected Bellatrix's spell. The jet of light hit a shelf and a few glass balls shattered. Two ghostlike figures appeared and began to speak. But as they spoke at the same time, and as Malfoy and Bellatrix were still shouting, Luna couldn't hear the prophecies properly. She didn't care and was much more interested in the fact that the Death Eaters apparently did know more spells than _Lumos_. They didn't appear to want to use them, though, because of that tiny glass ball Harry was still holding.

"You haven't told me what's so special about this prophecy I'm supposed to be handing over," said Harry, voicing exactly what Luna was thinking.

"Do not play games with us, Potter," said Malfoy.

"I'm not playing games," said Harry.

"Dumbledore never told you the reason you bear that scar was hidden in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries?" Malfoy asked.

"I – what?" said Harry. "What about my scar?"

"Can this be?" said Malfoy, who sounded very happy for some reason. "Dumbledore never told you? Well, this explains why you didn't come earlier, Potter, the Dark Lord wondered why you didn't come running when he showed you the place where it was hidden in your dreams," Malfoy rambled on. "He thought natural curiosity would make you want to hear the exact wording ..."

"Did he?" said Harry. "So he wanted me to come and get it, did he? Why?"

Luna was distracted. Ginny was whispering something to Ron, while on her other side Hermione was muttering to Neville. Then Neville turned to Luna herself.  
"When Harry says _now_," he whispered, "we must smash the shelves. We must use _Reducto_."

Luna nodded. She understood. Harry probably wanted to distract the Death Eaters, so they could run away. Luna raised her wand slightly and pointed to the shelves nearest to Lucius Malfoy.

"NOW!" bellowed Harry.

"_REDUCTO_!" yelled Luna, and the others around her did the same. All around them shelves exploded and glass balls shattered. Dozens of white figures emerged from the fragments and started floating in the air.

Luna started to run, knocking several Death Eaters out of the way as she went, and saw Ron and Ginny sprinting beside her. Her heart was beating very fast, and she could only think of escaping the Death Eaters. Wherever they might end up, it didn't matter as long as those Death Eaters weren't there. They raced to the end of the row of shelves, and turned left. After a couple of yards, a door appeared to their right. Ginny skidded to a halt, smashed her body into the door and fell inside when it opened. Luna and Ron went after her and quickly shut the door. Panting, Luna looked around. The room was quite big. There were about thirty desks in it, and the walls were covered with chests of drawers. There were three other doors in this room.

"Not much space for hiding here," she commented.

"Let's try one of the doors," said Ginny.

They dashed to the door in the wall on the right, but when they were nearly there, two Death Eaters came running through the door behind.

"_STUPEFY_!" one of them shouted.

Luna ducked just in time behind a desk and saw the jet of light fly over her head. Ron and Ginny were also hiding behind a desk. They tried to get to the door as quickly as possible without being seen by the Death Eaters, but then another door burst open, and a few other Death Eaters ran in. Luna, Ginny and Ron gave up all caution and ran as fast as they could to the door ahead. The Death Eaters shouted curses; flashes of light were all around them, a desk overturned, a Death Eater screamed; but luckily Luna, Ginny and Ron weren't hurt. They stumbled into the next room to find there was no floor to stand on. Luna didn't see any doors or walls. Everything was dark, although there seemed to be a red ball floating several feet ahead.

Luna grabbed Ron's robes and pulled him with her through the dark. She felt Ginny at her other side. They weren't going very fast, ploughing through empty space, but when the group of Death Eaters who were following them reached the room, Ron, Ginny and Luna were at least far enough away to be out of the Death Eaters' range of vision – which didn't mean much, as the whole room was pitch-black. The group of Death Eaters were soon surprised to discover that their progress was to be impeded by the absence of a floor.

"_STUPEFY! STUPEFY! STUPEFY!_" one of them shouted, and Luna recognised the voice of the mad woman, Bellatrix Lestrange. She was blindly shooting Stunners in every direction. Although she didn't hit anyone, one of them was a narrow miss, and Luna saw Ginny's face light up when the red jet of light flew past.

"There they are!" a man's voice shouted.

Ron tried to get away and pulled Luna with him. Suddenly, Luna felt ground under her feet. For a couple of yards, they could run properly. Then the floor suddenly stopped again, and Luna collided with another floating ball, which she recognised immediately as a small model of Saturn. They were in a room full of planets.

Then, without warning, a violet flash of light hit Ron full in the head. Luna's breath caught in her chest when she felt Ron's body go limp. She desperately hoped he wasn't dead, and was only knocked unconscious. She pulled him along with her. Maybe there was a way out after Pluto. All of the outer planets seemed to be on the same side of the sun, so if they would just try to find their way to each of the planets in turn, they would go in roughly the right direction. The Death Eaters were still firing curses in their direction, and the situation was getting more and more dangerous. Luna plunged on and saw Ginny near Uranus, a few feet ahead. At that moment, Ron woke up.

"Hey, what's this? What are you doing?" he shouted.

Relief that Ron wasn't dead battled in Luna with fright that the Death Eaters heard them. Luna tried to put her hand on his mouth, but she couldn't find his mouth and didn't have the time to look properly. Luckily there was a bit of floor again, and she tried to get Ron on his feet.

"What's that? Hey, it's Uranus!" Ron yelled. "Uranus! I can see Uranus!" He seemed to think that was funny, because he started to giggle.

Luna gave up trying to get Ron on his feet, and lay down herself, just as another curse was sent at her.

"Ginny!" she said. "Help me!"

"I'm right here," said Ginny. "What's happened to Ron?"

"I don't know, but we need to get out of here, quickly!"

"Ginny? You also here?" Ron asked. "Why is it so dark?"

Together, Ginny and Luna moved Ron in the direction where Luna hoped that the exit was. But the Death Eaters had moved faster. Luna could clearly distinguish shouted curses now.

"_Expelliarmus!_"

Luna ducked, causing the red flash of light to hit Neptune. The planet sailed a few feet through the space before continuing his orbit.

"Do you see the planets?" Ron said. "Neptune was moving ... ha ha ha ..."

"_Petrificus Totalus!_"

Ginny ducked. Luna pointed her wand to where the flash of light had come from, and yelled, "_Stupefy!_"

"Hey, look!" Ron said. "Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are in one line ... ha ha ... that means grave danger is coming ... ha ha ha ..."

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

Luna and Ginny threw themselves to the ground, pulling Ron with them. After the green light had disappeared in the dark, they pulled Ron upwards again and ran again to the tiny ball of light ahead that was Pluto.

"_Expelliarmus!_"

"_Protego!_" Ginny yelled. A Death Eater shouted, hit by the rebounded spell.

When they had just made it past Pluto, the floor ceased to exist again, and Ron fell, pulling Luna with him. Then Ginny screamed. In the feeble light caused by Pluto, Luna saw one of the Death Eaters holding Ginny's foot. Luna pointed her wand at Pluto.

"_Reducto!_" she yelled. Pluto exploded right in the face of the Death Eater. He howled and turned around, but did not let go of Ginny. There was a horrible crack.

Luna could finally see the door, only a few feet ahead, and the Death Eaters were confused for a few moments. She took Ron's arm in one hand, and Ginny's arm in the other, and then ploughed through the space to the door. The door opened when they reached it. They literally fell through it and found themselves in the circular hallway where they had been before.

"Ron! Ginny – are you all –?"

Luna looked up and saw Harry running towards them. Behind him, Neville was standing, holding an unconscious Hermione. Neville's face was covered with blood, and Harry's face was etched with worry, but he didn't seem to be injured himself, except for a large bruise on his face.

Luna could also see Ron properly now. He was very pale and looked quite unhealthy.

"Harry," giggled Ron, "there you are ... ha ha ha .. you look funny, Harry ... you're all messed up ..."

Ron grabbed Harry's robes with both hands, and sunk to the ground. Blood dribbled out of his mouth.

Luna got to her feet and looked at Ginny, who also was trying to get up, but not with much success.

"Ginny?" Harry said fearfully. "What happened?"

Ginny shook her head, abandoned the attempts to get up, and sat down on the floor.

Luna bent over her. "I think her ankle is broken, I heard something crack." She shuddered as she recalled the horrible sound. "Four of them chased us into a dark room full of planets; it was a very odd place, some of the time we were just floating in the dark –"

She was interrupted by Ron, who was still giggling. "Harry, we saw Uranus up close! Get it, Harry? We saw Uranus – ha ha ha –"

"Anyway," Luna continued, "one of them grabbed Ginny's foot, I used the Reductor Curse and blew up Pluto in his face, but ..."

She gestured at Ginny, who was very pale and had closed her eyes.

"And what about Ron?" asked Harry.

Luna looked at Ron, who was still hanging on the front of Harry's robes. "I don't know what they hit him with, but he's gone a bit funny, I could hardly get him along at all."

"Harry," said Ron, "you know who this girl is, Harry? She's Loony ... Loony Lovegood ... ha ha ha ..."

Luna already knew what people were calling her, but it was a bit disturbing to hear it out of Ron's mouth. She knew he would never say that in a more normal condition.

"We've got to get out of here," said Harry. "Luna, can you help Ginny?"

"Yes," said Luna. She put her wand behind her ear to free her hands, and pulled Ginny up.

"It's only my ankle, I can do it myself!" said Ginny. She tried to get up without using Luna's support, and collapsed at once. Luna heaved her up and started to walk to the door that Harry was trying to pull Ron to.

Suddenly, another door opened and the Death Eaters who had chased Luna came out, although one of them was missing. Luna happily concluded that her explosion of Pluto had done a lot of damage.

"_There they are!_" Bellatrix Lestrange cried.

"_Stupefy! STUPEFY!_" the other Death Eaters yelled.

Luna ducked, grabbed Ginny tight and ran to the door Harry had just run through. She nearly collided with Harry who came out again. She pulled Ginny into the room and saw Harry, Neville and Hermione come in after her.

"_Colloportus!_" shouted Harry, which closed the door. Luna thought that a lot of trouble could have been avoided if she had known that spell before.

"It doesn't matter!" said a Death Eater outside in the circular hallway. "There are other ways in – WE'VE GOT THEM, THEY'RE HERE!"

Luna looked around. They were in the room with brains, the same one they had been through on their way in. It was a large room, and desks of all sizes stood at random places in it. All around the room were doors, and footsteps, no doubt from the Death Eaters, were already audible behind those doors.

"Luna – Neville – help me!" Harry shouted. His intention was clear. They ran around the room, sealing the doors with the _Colloportus_ spell. Tables were turned over on their way, but nobody cared.

As Luna reached her third door, she heard loud footsteps right behind it. She wasted no time, and started her incantation while still rushing towards it. But it was of no use.

"_Collo– aaaaaaaaaaargh_ ..."

A flash of light had came through the door, hit her and sent her flying. Then her head hit a desk and everything went black.

A headache. A headache like she had never had before. It felt like at least a thousand people were hammering into her head at the same time.

Luna opened her eyes. Just beside her was a desk, somewhat blurry around the edges. She blinked and blinked and blinked, but her vision wouldn't improve.

Then there was sound. A door was thrown open, footsteps were echoing loudly. A woman shouted something. More footsteps. A splash. Luna tried to lift her head, and failed miserably. She groaned. A shadow leapt over her. Someone said something, far away. Then everything went quiet again.

After a while, a boy started saying the same word again and again. It sounded like Ron. His voice was full of joy. After a couple of seconds, Luna decided that Ron still hadn't recovered from the curse that had hit him in the room with the planets.

Someone new entered the room. The footsteps came nearer and finally stopped beside Luna. An old face wearing half-moon glasses bent over her.

"Are you all right?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes – no – I suppose," Luna said. "Headache," she added simply.

"We'll be sending you all to the hospital wing at Hogwarts," the Headmaster said, nodding, before he turned and walked away.

Luna sat up cautiously and rested her back against the desk beside her. She surveyed the room. The floor was splattered with green potion. The tank with the brains had smashed into the floor. Brains were scattered around the room, but they seemed quite harmless.

A lonely stretcher floated in mid-air, a couple of feet away from Luna. Someone with bubblegum pink hair was lying on it. At the opposite side of the room, Ron was walking in circles. Somewhere behind him, Hermione was lying, apparently still unconscious. Luna wondered what had hit her. A single Stunner wouldn't knock you out for such a long period of time. No matter how curious she was as to what had hit Hermione, Luna didn't feel up to standing up and walking over to her to get a better look. Finally, there was Ginny, to whom Dumbledore was now talking. Ginny was sitting in the same place Luna had left her, directly after entering the room. It made Luna wonder how long she had been out cold. Not much seemed to have changed.

Currently there were no Death Eaters in sight, but Harry and Neville were also missing.

At that moment Neville walked into the room. Beside him was a tall black man Luna hadn't seen before. The man looked around the room once, and immediately began conjuring stretchers. Dumbledore then pointed his wand at a desk, which glowed blue for a short time. Luna guessed he was turning the desk into a Portkey.

"Can you get on yourself?" the tall man asked Luna, arriving with an empty stretcher.

"I don't think so," Luna replied.

"All right. _Mobilicorpus_."

It was a most peculiar feeling to be floated on a stretcher, but it was comfortable. Luna's head was still throbbing, and she was yearning for something as ordinary as a Dreamless Sleep Potion. She had seen enough strange things for one night.

Dumbledore said something in an undertone to the tall man, and strode out of the room.

At last they were ready to leave. The stretchers were all grouped around the Portkey, and many hands reached out to touch the desk.

"Here we go," the man said. "One – two – three –"

In a swirl of colours and sounds, they travelled back to Hogwarts.


	3. Ron

**Planets, Brains and Curses** Chapter Three: Ron

Ron was scared. His heart was beating at twice its regular speed. His breathing was quicker than usual. His muscles were all tensed up. But despite all this, he couldn't give up. He couldn't run away. He couldn't back out of this. He was here, and he would stay here, in the middle of a huge, dimly-lit room in the Department of Mysteries. He didn't really have a choice, but even if he did, he would stay. His friends needed him. He would protect them, especially Hermione and Ginny. Harry didn't really need protection, and Luna and Neville ... well, Ron couldn't protect everyone.

The reason Ron was scared was a dozen black-robed and hooded figures, their wands raised, ready to attack. Ron and his friends were surrounded by Death Eaters. But at the moment, there wasn't really anything Ron could do. Harry was talking to the leader of the Death Eaters, Lucius Malfoy, who seemed to want the glass ball Harry was holding.

The glass ball was a strange thing. They had come all way to London to rescue Sirius, and all they had found in the place where Sirius was supposedly held was a glass ball, labelled with Harry's name. Harry had picked it up, and that was the moment the adventure had stopped being fun.

For Harry, it hadn't been fun at all. Harry had believed his godfather was held by You-Know-Who and was being tortured. But Ron had listened to Hermione, and, for once, he had agreed with her. She had reasonably argued that Sirius couldn't be in the Ministry, and Ron had wholeheartedly agreed. But he hadn't been stupid enough to try to convince Harry. Hermione really should have learned by now that Harry was extremely stubborn. There was no way Harry would believe Sirius wasn't in the Ministry unless he had seen it with his own eyes. So Ron had agreed to go. It had seemed to become a nice adventure.

Ron had been in the Ministry before, but only in the Atrium and his father's office. That hadn't been much fun. Now they had gone to the Department of Mysteries. A strictly prohibited area, except for the Unspeakables, but somehow Ron and Harry and the others had gained access without any problems. From that moment on, things had become really interesting. Or they had seemed to be. Now, Ron couldn't understand that he hadn't become suspicious when all the doors just opened before them.

They had seen various rooms, packed with very strange gadgets. A room with lots of stone benches and an ancient archway in the middle of the floor. That had been rather creepy, because Harry had seemed strangely attracted to the archway and the fluttering veil hanging off it. Luckily Hermione and Ron had been able to pull him out of it.

But Ron had liked the room with brains best. He wished they were still there. There had been brains swimming in a large tank full of green liquid. They had looked really fascinating. Ron had wondered what would happen if he pulled one of the brains out of the tank. He hadn't tried it, of course. He had enough common sense to know you should never touch unknown magical objects.

They had also been through a room packed with clocks, just before they had entered the Glass Ball Hall. Ron hadn't had much time to get a good look, but he was almost certain he had spotted an hourglass just like Hermione had had in third year. Apparently, Time-Turners were stored in the Department of Mysteries. A Time-Turner wasn't really a great mystery, and Ron guessed there were more mysterious mysteries somewhere in this Department. Maybe behind the door that didn't open. They had only come across one door that didn't open at first touch. Not even Harry's knife, which was supposed to open any lock it encountered, had managed to get it open. Surely, behind that door were the really interesting things.

Finally, they had found the hall with glass balls. If only they never had found it, and just had gone home ... But they had found it, and they had run to the row in which, according to Harry's dream, Sirius should have been. And there, although Sirius hadn't been there, Ron had found the label with Harry's name on it.

The Death Eaters had shown themselves as soon as Harry had picked up the glass ball. And they were still here. Because Harry still hadn't handed them the glass ball. He had even resisted an attempt to Summon the ball, by a female Death Eater, who seemed slightly mad. Once she had pulled off her mask so they could clearly see her face, Ron remembered who she was. She was one of the Death Eaters who had escaped from Azkaban. Her name was Bellatrix Lestrange, although Ron changed that in his head to Mad Bellatrix at once. It seemed a more appropriate name for her.

Mad Bellatrix tried to Stun Harry, but Lucius Malfoy deflected the curse and the two of them had a huge row, while two ghost-like figures that had emerged from a few glass balls, broken by the deflected curse, seemed to be reciting something.

Ron made a mental note to congratulate Harry later at annoying the Death Eaters so much that they started shouting at each other – when they had made it out of this mess alive.

Ron felt Ginny stir beside him. He wondered how she was doing. He was extremely frightened himself, and he had done things like this (although without the Death Eaters) before. She hadn't. He would have liked to comfort her, but he really couldn't do that now, in front of the Death Eaters.

He looked at Hermione. He would also have liked to comfort her. Fighting Death Eaters was not really something that could be learned from books, and Hermione had never been very calm under pressure. Luckily she had been in the DA as well. She had been rather good, too. Ron recalled all too well being hit by various hexes.

"_Ron!_" someone whispered. Ron looked around. The sound had come from Ginny's direction. She wasn't looking at him, but Ron supposed that was to avoid attracting attention from the Death Eaters.

"What is it?" he muttered.

"The moment Harry says _now_, we'll smash the shelves holding the glass balls. Use _Reducto_. Do you understand?"

Ron nodded almost imperceptibly. Obviously, Harry was planning a distraction. Ron tightened the grip on his wand. His heart started beating even faster, and his breathing was very quick. He was scared, very scared, but Harry, Ginny, and Hermione needed him. He concentrated on what Harry was saying.

"Someone made a prophecy about Voldemort and me? And he's made me come and get it for him? Why couldn't he come and get it himself?"

Mad Bellatrix laughed. "Get it himself? The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?"

"So, he's got you doing his dirty work for him, has he?" Harry asked. "Like he tried to get Sturgis to steal it – and Bode?"

"Very good, Potter, very good ..." said Lucius Malfoy. Ron tuned out the rest of his words, because he saw Harry straightening his shoulders slightly, and straining the muscles in his right arm – signs Ron recognised immediately. After five years of knowing Harry, he knew exactly what they meant: Harry was preparing to do something unexpected, rash or impressive.

"NOW!" roared Harry.

"_REDUCTO!_" yelled Ron, at exactly the same time as the others.

Shelves collapsed; glass balls crashed; glass, wood, dust and smoke figures were everywhere.

"RUN!" Harry shouted.

It took a moment before Ron had spotted Ginny in the chaos. A Death Eater was near her. Ron jumped forward, seized her arm and ran. He heard footsteps behind him, but he didn't look back. He didn't want to know whether it was the Death Eaters or his friends.

At the end of the row, they turned left. A couple of yards ahead was a door. Ron let go of Ginny's arm and sprinted to the door. Ginny arrived first – Ron had never known she could run so fast – and wrenched the door open. Just before Ron went in, he looked back and saw Luna, but none of the others. Luna closed the door behind them.

They were in a room with lots of desks, placed randomly around the room. One of the desks blocked a door on the other side of the room.

"Not much space for hiding in here," Luna said dryly.

"Let's try one of the doors," said Ginny.

She started to run, and Ron and Luna followed. They zigzagged between the desks, heading for a door on the right. Suddenly there was a noise behind Ron. A door was opened, and there were footsteps –

"_STUPEFY_!" someone shouted.

Ron dived to the floor and saw Ginny doing the same. They hid behind a desk. A flash of light flew over another desk, behind which Luna had ducked. As soon as the Stunner had passed, Ron, Ginny and Luna started moving again. Ron heard the Death Eaters stumbling across the room behind them.

Ron, Ginny and Luna managed to come several feet closer to the door without being seen, but then another door flew open. The newly arrived Death Eaters immediately began to shout curses. Ron straightened up and ran flat out to the door. One jet of light very nearly hit him, and somewhere a huge desk was overturned, making the floor vibrate, but he managed to reach the door without being hurt. Luna was already inside the next room when Ron grabbed Ginny's arm and pushed her inside. Then he followed both of the girls and closed the door in one swift movement.

There was no floor in this room. For a moment, Ron panicked and thought he had pushed his little sister into a deep hole; but then a hand grabbed hold of his robes and pulled him forward. They made their way towards a floating ball, which emitted dark red light. As they moved closer to the ball, Ron saw it was spinning, and he suddenly recognised it. He had seen pictures of the planets in Astronomy, and this was definitely one of them. He thought it was Jupiter.

The door behind burst open again. They were in the dark, but that didn't stop the Death Eaters from trying to hex them.

"_STUPEFY! STUPEFY! STUPEFY!_" shouted someone, whose voice Ron recognised as Mad Bellatrix's.

She was firing curses in random directions, and Ron had to duck to stop one of the curses from hitting him. A few seconds later, another one came in their direction. Ginny's face lit up when the jet of light flew very close past her. She was further away from Ron than he had supposed she was. He now realised that it wasn't Ginny who was holding his robes in her hand, but Luna.

"There they are!" shouted one of the Death Eaters.

Ron tried to run a bit faster, dragging Luna along, but walking in space wasn't easy at all. Then suddenly there was a floor. He now ran as fast as he could, while still holding Luna, because the last thing he wanted was to lose the others. There was another ball ahead, probably Saturn, the next planet, if Ron remembered correctly.

The floor ceased to exist. Ron stumbled. Luna collided with Saturn. Ron tried to stay upright, and flipped around in his attempt to do so. He saw a flash of violet light coming towards him. It hit him straight in the head.

Ron looked around. Everything was dark. He seemed to drift. For a moment, he wondered if he was perhaps dead. Then he felt someone pulling him around. That didn't feel like he was dead. He tried to remember what had happened. They were doing something dangerous, weren't they? Ron didn't know.

"Hey, what's this?" he yelled at the person holding him. "What are you doing?"

He didn't get an answer. Something hit his head, and then his shoulder. Behind him, people were shouting. Sometimes, there was a flash of light in some colour. He had already seen yellow, red and pink light. Red seemed to be the most popular colour.

Suddenly Ron's legs made contact with something hard. The unidentified person was pulling harder at him, but he didn't move. That was of course because the hard thing he was sitting on. It made him stop sliding. He looked around and saw a huge ball, not far ahead. Something clicked in his mind.

"What's that? Hey, it's Uranus! Uranus, I can see Uranus!"

Seeing Uranus was funny. He could remember one time before someone had seen Uranus. That had been in class, and it had been very funny. He started to laugh. Uranus was funny.

"Ginny!" someone said. "Help me!"

"I'm right here," another voice said. "What's happened to Ron?"

"I don't know," the first voice said, "but we need to get out of here, quickly!"

Ron stopped laughing as he recognised the second voice as his sister's. Why was Ginny here? Did she like it in the dark? Or wasn't she here voluntary? Was she possibly in danger? He needed to help her!

"Ginny, are you also here?" he asked. "Why is it so dark?"

Ginny didn't answer. Another hand grabbed Ron and pulled him forwards. His legs dragged on the hard thing Ron now realised was the floor.

The shouting people seemed to get closer. Another red flash of light flew over Ron's head. He followed the light with his eyes and saw it hit another ball. There were more planets in this room! The one hit by the light was Neptune. It flew through the space and stopped close by another planet. That one was definitely Pluto.

"Do you see the planets? Neptune was moving ... ha ha ha ..."

"_Stupefy!_" someone close shouted, but it wasn't Ginny.

Ron looked again at Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. He started to laugh again.

"Hey, look!" he said. "Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are in one line ... ha ha ... that means grave danger is coming ... ha ha ha ..."

Instead of laughing with him, the two people holding him pulled him to the ground. Then they pulled him upwards again and moved even faster. They came closer to Pluto.

"_Expelliarmus!_" someone shouted.

"_Protego!_" cried Ginny.

The words were familiar, but Ron didn't understand what they meant. He concentrated on the planets again. They passed Pluto. Then Ron fell to the floor, but there wasn't a floor any more. Ginny shouted. Ron looked up. He needed to protect his sister, but he had no idea how.

In the light provided by Pluto, Ron saw Ginny and a hooded man holding Ginny's ankle. There was also another girl, who Ron recognised as Loony Lovegood. Loony pointed her wand at Pluto and said, "_Reducto!_"

Pluto exploded in the face of the man, who whipped around. Then there was a crack. Ron didn't have time to think about what he had seen, because Loony grabbed his arm again and pulled him away from Pluto. He drifted in space again, as there was no floor. Only a few seconds later, he fell hard on a floor.

"Ron! Ginny!" someone shouted. "Are you all –?"

Ron looked up and saw Harry dashing towards him. Harry looked funny. His glasses were askew and there was a large bruise on his face. Ron giggled, stood up and grabbed Harry's robes.

"Harry," he said, "there you are ... ha ha ha ... you look funny, Harry ... you're all messed up ..."

His legs weren't working properly. The Space Room had made them weak. He sat down on the floor and gazed up at Harry. His best friend.

But Harry looked away. "Ginny? What happened?"

Ginny didn't answer, but Loony did. Ron tuned her out. It was much more important to concentrate on Harry.

"Harry, we saw Uranus up close!" he giggled. "Get it, Harry? We saw Uranus – ha ha ha –"

Harry looked back at Ron, but he didn't look happy at all. Didn't he like the joke with Uranus? Ron didn't understand.

"And what about Ron?" Harry asked Loony.

"I don't know what they hit him with," Loony Lovegood said, "but he's gone a bit funny, I could hardly get him along at all."

Ron felt it was important to clarify things a bit. "Harry, you know who this girl is, Harry? She's Loony ... Loony Lovegood ... ha ha ha ..."

Harry didn't laugh. "We've got to get out of here. Luna, can you help Ginny?"

Ron didn't understand. Why wasn't Harry laughing? What was wrong? They always had so much fun together, but today it was different.

Harry pulled Ron upright, and laid Ron's arm over his shoulder. Together, they walked to one of the many doors in this room.

But another door opened and people came in. Ron looked back and saw Mad Bellatrix running towards him.

"_There they are!_" she shrieked.

Ron realised this wasn't good. He stopped giggling. Why this wasn't funny, he didn't really know, but it definitely wasn't. Maybe because Mad Bellatrix was a Death Eater.

Harry pulled Ron with him through a door and then left him. Ron leaned against the wall. He saw Neville come, carrying Hermione. Hermione was unconscious. Ron now felt a bit afraid.

Harry came in again and slammed the door shut. "_Colloportus_!"

There was a crash on the other side of the door. People were screaming and shouting. Ron didn't want to hear it. He tried to walk a few steps, but that was horribly difficult.

He looked around. Harry, Neville and Loony were running across the room. Harry rolled over a table. Ron laughed. Then Loony flew across the room. Ron smiled and felt very happy again.

But now Mad Bellatrix was in the room again. Ron decided to ignore her. He looked somewhere else and saw a tank full of green liquid. White things were swimming in the liquid. Ron knew what they were, Hermione had told him.

"Hey!" he said, walking towards Harry. "Hey, Harry, there are _brains_ in here, ha ha ha, isn't that weird, Harry?"

"Ron, get out of the way, get down –"

But Ron didn't want to get out of the way. Those brains were funny! He pointed his wand at the tank.

"Honest, Harry," he said, "they're brains – look – _Accio Brain_!"

One of the brains flew out of the tank. Tentacles were flying from it, unrolling themselves until the brain was about four feet wide.

"Ha ha ha, Harry, look at it –" said Ron happily. "Harry, come and touch it; bet it's weird –"

"RON, NO!" Harry bellowed, but Ron caught the brain in his hands. The tentacles wrapped themselves around his arms. It was like the brain was trying to hug him.

"Harry, look what's happen– No – no – I don't like it – no, stop – _stop_ –"

The tentacles were hugging Ron far too enthusiastically. They had wrapped themselves around his chest, and that didn't feel nice.

"_Diffindo!_" Harry yelled, pointing his wand at Ron.

But nothing changed. Ron pulled at the tentacles, but they didn't want to release him. It was getting difficult to breathe.

Ron tried to grab the brain, but he couldn't move his arm far enough to reach it. He lost his balance and fell over.

"Harry, it'll suffocate him!" Ginny shouted.

"STUBEFY!" Neville bellowed. "STUBEFY! STUBEFY!"

Ron stopped fighting for a moment and looked up. He saw Neville dodging a jet of light, and then crashing into a desk. Harry was running away, holding a tiny glass ball above his head. The people dressed in black, including Mad Bellatrix, were running after him.

Suddenly, Ron couldn't breathe any more. One of the tentacles had managed to reach his neck, and was strangling him. Ron didn't like it at all, and didn't understand why this was happening. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was dying, and that his best friend had just walked away.

Then two hands grabbed the tentacle around his neck and pulled it away. Ron blinked and focused on Neville's face, which was just before his eyes, and was covered with red paint. His eyes travelled down to Neville's hands, which were holding a slimy tentacle.

Just in time, Ron saw another of those slimy things trying to reach his neck. He seized it and pulled it away. He realised with surprise that the tentacles had left his arms, so he could move them again. He was wondering where they had gone, when about three of the tentacles wrapped themselves around his head.

_It's been a long time, but now I'll live again!_

Where did that come from? Ron told himself firmly that he shouldn't think that kind of things. He wasn't sure of his life, so thinking that he would live was absurd.

_It won't be much longer now, don't worry._

What wouldn't be much longer? Was he going mad? One tentacle obscured Ron's vision, another was trying to get in his ear.

_I'll finally have a body again. I wonder if the boy's wand will suit me. Probably not._

Ron caught on. Foreign thoughts were invading his mind!

_Don't struggle so much, boy, it'll be over in a moment._

"NOOOO!" Ron screamed. He tried to find the brain with his hands.

_Another second, maybe two –_

After what seemed an eternity, he found it. He pulled at it, but he wasn't strong enough.

– _and I'll be in your brain. Any moment now; you'd better give up._

More tentacles were wrapping themselves around his head, and they weren't about to let him go. At the same time, the brain itself was pressing on his chest, making it difficult to breathe.

Then two other hands – probably Neville's – were also pulling at the brain.

"Hold ob, Ron!" Neville's voice said from somewhere near.

_No, stop struggling, stupid kid! You won't win anyway._

Together, they managed to pull the brain a few inches away from Ron's chest, and a few tentacles slipped from his head.

_I was almost there! But I will have victory!_

Another tentacle left his head, and settled around his shoulder. The two other hands disappeared from the brain, and it came an inch nearer again.

"I have do go and helb Harry, now," Neville said. "Keeb fighding, Ron!"

And Ron fought. He pulled at the tentacles, punched the brain, rolled over on the ground, trying to crush it, and even bit one of the tentacles. But that was a mistake. Not only did the thing have a horrible taste, it also took advantage from Ron's open mouth and tried to get in it. Ron had to use both hands to pull it out again and stop it from suffocating him, but at the same time three other tentacles reached his head. During all this, the brain was still invading Ron's mind with strange thoughts.

_Don't pull that hard, stupid boy, you're damaging my tentacles!_

_You don't need to be afraid, I don't think you'll have much pain when I take over._

_Think of all the things I could do while impersonating you!_

_I might be going to Hogwarts, too. You're a wizard, aren't you?_

Something clicked in Ron's mind when this thought intruded. He was a wizard. He had been a wizard for all his life. What did wizards do in a fight? They used their wands!

Ron tried to hold the brain off with his left hand, and with his right pulled his wand out. What spell should he use? For a moment, his mind was blank. Then –

"_STUP–_"

He stopped just in time. What if he missed and Stunned himself? He couldn't risk that. He would need to use some less harming spell.

"_Expelliarmus_!" Ron yelled, carefully pointing his wand at the brain.

One tentacle was forced to let go, but the other ones gripped Ron just as hard. Ron forced himself to think. What had he learned in the DA? The Patronus Charm? That wouldn't be any help, and besides, he couldn't even conjure a proper Patronus.

"_Incendio_!" he cried, but the brain was made of soggy material and didn't catch fire.

_I'm not afraid of your wand, you know._

Ron summoned all his strength to pull a tentacle off his head and thought. What if the brain was immune to spells? Ron would be left fighting forever. Even Harry and Neville didn't care about him any more. No, there had to be a defence. Probably something ... irregular.

"_Rictusempra_!" Ron bellowed. The brain, hit with the Tickling Charm, released Ron and fell to the ground next to him, its tentacles wriggling. With another flick of his wand, Ron Banished the brain to the tank where he belonged.

He was free.

He tried to stand up, but thought better of it. He just slid backwards over the floor and sat with his back against a desk. Then he looked around. Ginny was sitting on the floor not far away from him. She didn't seem to be able to speak. She looked weird. Her face was white, her mouth half-open. Ron giggled. Another expression crossed Ginny's face – one Ron didn't understand. He looked to the left and saw Loony Lovegood lying on the floor. Her mouth was open, too, and she seemed to be gazing to the ceiling.

There was a noise at Ron's left. He looked at the door. Ginny looked that way too. Then the door burst open, and three people ran in. Ron knew these people. Mad-Eye Moody led the way, followed by Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt. The skidded to a halt when they saw all the people on the floor.

"What happened? Ron? Ginny?" asked Tonks, who had bubblegum pink hair. "Are you all right?"

Ron giggled. How could he explain everything? Uranus, the brain, foreign thoughts, Loony Lovegood –

"Never mind us," said Ginny. "Harry and Neville are fighting about ten Death Eaters somewhere."

The three adults started running again and disappeared through a door at the opposite side of the room.

Ron felt a bit bettter, so he got to his feet and started walking to the door the adults had come through. He paused beside Ginny.

"What is this room, Ginny?" he asked. "Why are we here? And what are Moody and Tonks and Kingsley doing here?"

Ginny looked up at him, again with a strange expression on her face. She sighed and said, "I don't know, Ron. Can you remember what happened to you?"

"Oh yes, I can remember lots of things!" Ron said happily. "Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were on one line. Then we met Harry. But he walked away, and a brain attacked me. It was talking to me in my head, it was very strange. I've tickled it, and now everything is all right again."

Ginny averted her eyes and sighed again. Ron didn't understand. He was telling her about the funny things he had experienced, but she didn't seem to like it! Maybe she wanted it to have happened to herself. Although the brain trying to take over hadn't been a very nice experience.

With Ginny still looking another way, Ron walked to the door. He wondered what would happen if he opened it.

But then someone came running out of the door at the other end of the room. Ron recognised her, it was Mad Bellatrix. She pointed her wand over her shoulder and shouted something. The tank with brains rose in the air, and then crashed on the floor. Green liquid flooded the room, and brains were all over the floor. A monster brain came running out of the mess. It was almost as tall Ron, was drenched in green potion and was wearing glasses. It was Harry!

"Harry – what –?" Ginny said.

Ron giggled. Harry looked really funny. But Harry wasn't laughing. He didn't even look at Ron. He ran past him and went through the door – just as Mad Bellatrix had done.

Ron sank down on the floor, thoroughly disappointed. Why hadn't Harry stopped and laughed with Ron about how he was looking, and about the others, and Uranus, and this whole room, this whole building. Why didn't Harry care about Ron?

Then he caught sight of the brains on the floor. He jumped to his feet and walked towards them. "_Rictusempra! Rictusempra!_"

He bewitched all the brains, until they were scurrying harmless on the floor.

Dumbledore came in. So the Headmaster was also here. But they weren't at Hogwarts. Ron had never seen such a room at Hogwarts before.

Dumbledore had floated a stretcher into the room. Tonks was lying on the stretcher, sleeping. It was a strange place to be asleep. Maybe it was very late at night. He felt a bit sleepy himself.

Suddenly Dumbledore was in front of Ron. Ron smiled at him.

"Ron," Dumbledore said kindly, "do you know where Hermione is?"

"She's lying there," Ron said, pointing, "but she's no fun at all, she doesn't do anything. She didn't even help when the brain was attacking me."

"Thank you, Ron," Dumbledore said. He turned around and pointed his wand at a desk.

"_Portus_."

The desk glowed blue. Ron stared at it, fascinated. After a few seconds, it stopped glowing, and it looked the same as before.

Kingsley stepped between Ron and the desk.

"Could you lie down on this stretcher, Ron?" he asked.

Ron obeyed. He didn't see the point, but lying on a stretcher was undoubtedly more comfortable than sitting on the ground.

His stretcher moved slowly towards the desk which had glowed blue before. Kingsley took Ron's left hand and laid it on the desk. Other hands were joining his.

"There we go," Kingsley said. "One – two – three –"

Ron felt a jerk behind his navel and the world dissolved around him.


	4. Neville

**Planets, Brains and Curses** Chapter Four: Neville

It was all very confusing. Neville couldn't make head nor tail of the events of this afternoon. First Harry had fallen out of his chair during the History of Magic OWL; then Neville had been dragged into Umbridge's office with the others; but they had fought their way out, had entered the Forbidden Forest and after that, they had flown to London. Having arrived there, things didn't become any clearer. They had entered the Department of Mysteries and had wandered through several strange rooms to find a certain Sirius, who, according to Harry, was captured by You-Know-Who. But Sirius wasn't there – even Harry had admitted it. Instead, they were looking at tiny glass balls. One of them had Harry's name on its label.

Harry stretched his hand out and picked up the dusty ball. Something he shouldn't have done, Neville was sure of that. Then someone spoke – with a voice Neville recognised at once. His grandmother had pointed out Lucius Malfoy when he was very young, and told him never to speak with the man, who was a Death Eater, although he walked free.

"Very good, Potter. Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."

Suddenly, everywhere around them were Death Eaters. Neville suppressed a shudder. The black-robed, hooded figures all had their wands out, which were pointing to the six Hogwarts students.

"To me, Potter," said Lucius Malfoy again.

Neville felt sick. What was going to happen? Would they be killed? Or worse – tortured? He thought of his parents, lying in the closed ward of St. Mungo's, and of his grandmother, who never really had accepted her loss. Neville straightened his shoulders. No one would be killed or tortured – not if he could help it.

"To me," said Malfoy.

"Where's Sirius?" Harry asked rather bravely.

The Death Eaters laughed. The laughter echoed in the huge room and sounded scary.

"The Dark Lord always knows!" exclaimed a harsh female voice.

"Always," repeated Malfoy. "Now, give me the prophecy, Potter."

The word 'prophecy' stirred something in Neville's memory, and for a few moments, he was distracted. His gran had once told him that a prophecy had been made just before he was born. His parents had been quite worried, because Neville could have been mentioned in the prophecy. Later, it had become clear that it referred to someone else. Gran had never told him who it really referred to, or what the prophecy was about, but he knew it had something to do with You-Know-Who.

Neville was startled when the female Death Eater with the harsh voice laughed very loudly.

"You hear him?" she said. "_You hear him_? Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!"

Instructions? Neville could have punched himself for not paying attention, but instead he turned to the others. They didn't do anything except holding their wands tight.

"Oh, you don't know Potter as I do, Bellatrix," said Malfoy softly. "He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. _Now give me the prophecy, Potter._"

Something in the back of Neville's head tried to get his attention again, but he ignored it and concentrated on what was happening right before him.

"I know Sirius is here," said Harry. "I know you've got him!"

The Death Eaters laughed again, the woman louder than any of them.

"It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter," said Malfoy coldly. "Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."

"Go on, then," said Harry, and raised his wand.

Neville raised his too. He was ready.

But nothing happened.

"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt," said Malfoy.

Neville couldn't help but be distracted again. His brain was working quickly, while his eyes witnessed a small fight between Harry, Lucius Malfoy and another Death Eater. Of that, he only registered that Harry didn't lose the prophecy. That was important – for Neville finally had put all the pieces of the puzzle together. The tiny glass balls were prophecies. The one Harry was holding was about You-Know-Who and someone else. Someone else, who was indicated on the label by a question-mark, and then the name 'Harry Potter'. This was the prophecy Gran had told him about. Neville just felt it. It wasn't him, but Harry who was mentioned in the prophecy.

It was about Harry being a danger to You-Know-Who. Gran had told him very few people knew the exact wordings of the prophecy. The Death Eaters probably didn't know either, and maybe even You-Know-Who didn't. That would be why they wanted it this badly: to find out what exactly was predicted.

Harry should never hand it over. But there was no way Neville would be able to tell all this to Harry. Hopefully he already knew about the prophecy.

Neville's eye now registered something that abruptly stopped his musings. The female Death Eater had stepped forward and pulled her hood off her head. It was Bellatrix Lestrange.

Anger boiled up in him. This was the woman who had tortured his parents. This was the one responsible for their insanity. This woman was the reason Gran was never truly happy.

He had never felt such a hatred towards anyone. He wanted to step forward and punch her, kick her, hit her everywhere. He wanted to curse her into the next century. He wanted her to be back in Azkaban, with the Dementors. He wanted to take her to St. Mungo's and show her his parents in the closed ward.

But a sensible voice somewhere in the back of his head told him that it would be best to stay where he was, and do nothing. Even his revenge wasn't more important than the prophecy now.

"You need more persuasion?" Bellatrix Lestrange said shrilly. "Very well – take the smallest one. Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I'll do it."

_Stay calm, stay calm_. Neville kept repeating this to himself. She wanted to torture Ginny? No way. She'd have to kill him first. He moved a bit backwards. He noticed that the five of them had closed in on Ginny entirely now. Harry was in the front.

"You'll have to smash this if you want to attack any of us," he said. "I don't think your boss would be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?"

Bellatrix didn't say anything. Neville used this moment of quiet to throw an almost deadly look to her. He was shaking with anger.

"So," Harry continued, "what kind of prophecy are we talking about, anyway?"

_He doesn't know!_

"What kind of prophecy?" echoed Bellatrix. "You jest, Harry Potter."

"Nope, not jesting," said Harry. "How come Voldemort wants it?"

Neville was so occupied both with his anger at Bellatrix and panic connected with the fact Harry didn't know anything about the prophecy, that he didn't even notice Harry saying the name, until –

"You dare speak his name?" Bellatrix hissed.

"Yeah," said Harry. "Yeah, I've got no problem with saying Vol–"

"Shut your mouth!" Bellatrix cried. "You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood's tongue, you dare –"

"Did you know he's a half-blood too? Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch, but his dad was a Muggle – or has he been telling you lot he's pure-blood?"

Neville didn't know if that was true, but he didn't care. Never before had he felt such amount of satisfaction. Bellatrix was quickly becoming angry and frustrated, and it cheered him up enormously.

"_STUP_–"

"NO!"

Bellatrix had gone too far. She had tried to Stun Harry, but now she had to deal with Lucius Malfoy, who wasn't too happy that she'd almost broken the so important glass ball.

The deflected curse hit a shelf with prophecies, and they shattered. Two figures, made of white smoke, drifted out of the fragments and started to speak. Neville watched interestedly. This was how the prophecies were stored: ghosts of Seers were waiting in the tiny balls to repeat the prophecy made by them. He tried to listen, but as Bellatrix and Malfoy were still shouting, and the two Seers were also talking at the same time, he couldn't catch many words.

"... _will finally take_ ..."

"... _at the solstice will come_ ..."

"DO NOT ATTACK! WE NEED THE PROPHECY!"

"... _after the conflict ends_ ..."

"WAIT UNTIL WE'VE GOT THE PROPHECY!"

"... _and none will come after_ ..."

The two figures disappeared, but the broken glass balls were not restored. Silence returned.

"You haven't told me what's so special about this prophecy I'm supposed to handing over," Harry said.

Malfoy twisted his wand threateningly. "Do not play games with us, Potter."

"I'm not playing games."

Neville felt Hermione stir beside him.

"Dumbledore never told you," Malfoy sneered, "the reason you bear that scar is hidden in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries?"

"I – what?" said Harry, clearly surprised. "What about my scar?"

"Can this be?" Malfoy asked cheerfully. "Dumbledore never told you? Well, this explains why you didn't come earlier, Potter, the Dark Lord wondered why you didn't come running when he showed you the place where it was hidden in your dreams. He thought natural curiosity would make you want to hear the exact wording ..."

Neville was distracted again. Hermione had turned slightly and was whispering to Ginny. Ginny nodded almost imperceptibly. Neville didn't need to wonder about this for long, because the next moment, Hermione nudged him.

"Smash the shelves when Harry says _now_," she whispered.

Neville looked up. "_Reducto_?" he asked softly.

"Yes," said Hermione. "Tell Luna."

Neville shot a look at the Death Eaters, who were all busy with listening to Harry and Lucius Malfoy. He looked around and caught Luna's eye.

"When Harry says _now_," he whispered, "we must smash the shelves. We must use _Reducto_."

Luna nodded, and Neville turned his head back.

Bellatrix Lestrange was again laughing madly over something, but Neville didn't listen. He picked a shelf full of glass orbs, and unobtrusively pointed his wand at it.

"Very good, Potter, very good ..." Malfoy was saying. "But the Dark Lord knows you are not unintell–"

"NOW!" Harry bellowed.

"_REDUCTO!_" Neville yelled.

Everywhere around him shelves exploded. Bellatrix screamed, Malfoy cursed. A Death Eater lunged at Neville, who didn't hesitate.

"_Stupefy!_" he shouted, and he saw the Death Eater falling backwards into three others. He heard Harry shout, "RUN!" He glimpsed Ginny somewhere ahead and started to run in the same direction. Behind him, shelves collapsed with loud crashes, glass balls shattered, and Seers were reciting their prophecies.

Neville was running next to Hermione, and Harry was just before them. When they reached the end of the row, thunderous footsteps were already to be heard behind them. Harry turned right, and Neville followed, but he slipped. Hermione seized his robes, and pulled him upright again, without even having stopped to run.

"Come on, now, Neville!" she shouted. "Come on! Run!"

Neville was running, but he could barely keep up with the others. Hermione was a few feet ahead again, and Harry was sprinting somewhere before her. With every step Neville took, the others seemed to be able to take two. The Death Eaters were probably at the end of the row now. The Death Eaters who had tortured his parents –

Suddenly, Neville felt a new burst of energy. He sprinted towards Hermione, and had almost reached her when he stepped into the room which they had come through earlier. Harry slammed the door shut behind him. And while Neville was gasping for breath, Hermione sealed the door with a quick "_Colloportus!_".

"Where are the others?" Harry panted.

"They must have gone the wrong way!" Hermione said.

Then Neville heard noises outside the room. Were those the others, standing in front of their door?

"Listen!" he whispered.

There were footsteps and shouts. Outside the door were the Death Eaters, but apparently, they were confused. Lucius Malfoy was shouting. "Leave Nott, _leave him_, I say – his injuries will be nothing to the Dark Lord compared to losing that prophecy."

Neville felt a warm glow of satisfaction. They had injured one of the Death Eaters!

"Jugson, come back here, we need to organise!" Malfoy continued. "We'll split into pairs and search, and don't forget, be gentle with Potter until we've got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary – Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left; Crabbe, Rabastan, go right – Jugson, Dolohov, the door straight ahead – Macnair and Avery, through here – Rookwood, over there – Mulciber, come with me!"

"What do we do?" Hermione asked nervously, looking at Harry.

Harry was already in action. "Well, we don't stand here waiting for them to find us, for a start. Let's get away from this door."

Neville got up and ran after Harry to the other end of the room. There was a door, which led – if Neville remembered correctly – to the circular hallway. But before they reached it, someone collided with the door behind with a loud crash.

"Stand aside!" said a rough voice. "_Alohomora!_"

The door flew open and Neville did the only thing that made sense: he dived under a desk. It worked.

"They might've run straight through to the hall," said the rough voice.

"Check under the desks," said another voice.

Neville stayed under his desk, but held his wand ready. If anyone would look under his desk –

"_STUPEFY!_" Harry bellowed.

One of the Death Eaters was hit by the curse and slammed into a grandfather clock. Neville rolled over under his desk and settled in a crouch. He saw Hermione scrambling out from under her desk, right towards the second Death Eater, who was aiming his wand at her.

"_Avada_ –" he started, but Harry came out of nowhere and grabbed his legs. The Death Eater tripped.

Neville straightened up, forgetting that he was still hiding under a desk, and overturned the desk. Harry and the Death Eater were now rolling over the ground.

"_Expelliarmus!_" Neville yelled.

But not only the Death Eater was disarmed. Two wands were flying through the air, and Harry and the Death Eater both charged after them.

Neville stepped into the middle of the room, his wand raised. "Get out of the way, Harry!"

Harry dove sideways, and Neville didn't linger.

"_STUPEFY!_" he shouted. He immediately regretted not having taken more time to aim, because the jet of light missed the Death Eater and hit a cabinet instead. The cabinet seemed to repair itself, though, but after that, it immediately shattered again. Neville didn't have time to look properly.

The Death Eater had picked up his wand before Harry could, and turned at once to Harry, who flung himself under a desk. The Death Eater's mask had slipped, and at the moment he ripped it off, Neville saw something move in the corner of his eye. It was Hermione.

The Death Eater aimed his wand at Harry. "_STUP–_"

"_STUPEFY!_" Hermione bellowed.

The jet of light hit the Death Eater in the chest, and he fell backwards into a bell jar. His head sank through the solid glass and hit the floor. For a moment, he just lay there, but then something changed. His head grew smaller. The rest of his body that was outside the bell jar, stayed the same, but his head shrank. Suddenly he moved his legs and arms again.

"Look out!" said Neville, not sure what was happening. He raised his wand, and so did the others. But the Death Eater now had the head of a baby. While he struggled to get up and out of the jar, his head was enlarged until it was normal again.

"It's Time," Hermione said. "_Time_ ..."

The head shrank back to a baby's head once more. Then someone shouted in a nearby room, there was a loud crash and then someone screamed. Neville thought the scream sounded like Bellatrix Lestrange.

"RON?" Harry yelled. "GINNY? LUNA?"

"Harry!" Hermione screamed.

The Death Eater with his head in the bell jar, had finally managed to get out. But he had a baby's head. He was producing strange sounds and didn't seem to have any control of his arms. Harry had to duck to avoid being slapped, and he now raised his wand, but –

"You can't hurt a baby!" Hermione said.

Harry looked surprised for a moment, but then turned around and headed for the door to the hallway once more. Hermione followed, and Neville brought up the rear.

There was a noise ahead, but Neville couldn't see what was happening. Without warning, Hermione grabbed Neville's arm and pulled him through a door to the left. Before Harry slammed the door shut, Neville looked back and saw that two Death Eaters were already gaining on them.

"_Collo_–" Hermione tried, but it was no use. The Death Eaters burst in.

"_IMPEDIMENTA!_" they both yelled at the same time.

Neville, Hermione and Harry were all knocked off their feet. Neville flew over a desk and fell hard on the floor. There were two other crashes, and a large bookcase to Neville's right swayed dangerously.

"WE'VE GOT HIM!" one of the Death Eater bellowed. "IN AN OFFICE OFF–"

"_Silencio!_" Hermione cried and the Death Eater stopped abruptly.

Neville sat up. He could see two pairs of legs now, but nothing else.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" Harry yelled, and one pair of legs snapped together as the Death Eater was hit by the curse and fell over.

"Well done, Ha–" Hermione's voice said, but she suddenly stopped speaking. The other legs Neville could see crumbled, and Hermione fell to the floor.

Neville crawled under the desk and emerged again at the other side, while Harry knelt beside Hermione.

Then a foot came out of nowhere, hit Neville's wand and then his face. Something cracked in his nose, and he howled in pain. He clutched his nose with his hands and felt blood trickling down his face. After a moment he remembered that he was still in a fight, and looked at his wand. It was lying on the ground, in two pieces. Neville groaned. His gran was going to kill him – if he made it out of here alive.

The silent Death Eater was grinning. He was pointing his wand at Harry, and holding his free hand out to him.

"Like you won't kill us all anyway, the moment I hand it over!" said Harry angry.

Of course. The prophecy.

"Whatever you do, Harry, don't give it to him!" Neville tried to say, but it came out of mouth as "Whaddever you do, Harry, don'd gib it to him!"

Harry looked quite uncertain, and Neville also didn't know what to do. The Death Eater was pointing his wand at them, and while he couldn't utter a sound, he somehow had cursed Hermione, so they weren't safe at all. But at exactly the right moment, there was a crash just outside the door. The Death Eater looked over his shoulder and seemed to forget about Harry and Neville for a moment. The baby-headed Death Eater came blundering into the office.

"_PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!_" Harry bellowed.

The Death Eater was taken by surprise, and was hit by the Full Body Bind.

"Hermione," Harry said, "Hermione, wake up ..."

Neville finally came out from under his desk. His nose was hurting, and he tasted blood, but the Death Eaters were gone for a moment, so he didn't care much.

"Whaddid he do to her?" he asked Harry.

"I dunno ..." said Harry, apparently completely at a loss, now his best friend didn't react.

Neville grabbed Hermione's wrist. There was no doubt, he felt a pulse.

"Dat's a pulse, Harry, I'b sure id is."

Harry seemed to glow with hope, and he even smiled slightly. "She's alive?"

"Yeah, I dink so," Neville said. He knew for sure she was alive, but not how long she would stay alive. She didn't have any visible injures, but Neville had lived in the magical world long enough to know that that wasn't any guarantee. But her heartbeat was regular, surely that was a good sign.

"Neville," Harry whispered, "we're not far from the exit, we're right next to that circular room ... if we can just get you across it and find the right door before any more Death Eaters come, I'll bet you can get Hermione up the corridor and into the lift ... then you could find someone ... raise the alarm ..."

During Harry's speech, Neville had already guessed what was coming. He only needed to ask one question to be sure. "And whad are you going do do?"

"I've got to find the others," said Harry firmly.

Neville suppressed a sigh. "Well, I'b going do find dem wid you."

"But Hermione –" Harry protested.

"We'll dake her wid us," Neville said. "I'll carry her – you're bedder at fighding dem dan I ab –"

He stood up. Harry was looking as though he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. Neville grabbed Hermione's arm, and after a slight hesitation, Harry seized the other. Together, they dragged Hermione up and laid her over Neville's shoulders.

"Wait," Harry said suddenly, "you'd better take this."

He was holding Hermione's wand. Neville accepted it. He looked to the pieces of his own wand, and kicked them. "My gran's going do kill be, dat was by dad's old wand."

Harry walked to the door and Neville followed, dragging Hermione. While they stepped back into the Time Room and walked cautiously past the baby-headed Death Eater to the circular hallway, sweat was mingling with blood on Neville's face. As soon as the door had slammed shut behind them, the room started to rotate again. Neville felt like the Death Eaters could come bursting through one of the doors any moment, while they were wasting their time waiting of the room to stop rotating.

"So which way d'you reck–" Harry started, but he was interrupted by a door that burst open. There were no Death Eaters coming through, but Ron, Ginny and Luna. Neville's heart sprang up. They were together again! Now they would just need to find the exit.

"Ron!" Harry said. "Ginny – are you all –?"

"Harry," said Ron, giggling, "there you are ... ha ha ha ... you look funny, Harry ... you're all messed up ..."

Something definitely was wrong with Ron. He was very pale, and blood was trickling down his chin, although Neville realised that the amount of blood was nothing compared to that on his own face. Ron was hanging down the front of Harry's robes, who was forced in a kind of bow. He was still giggling and gazing up to Harry.

"Ginny?" Harry said, his voice full with fear. "What happened?"

Neville looked around at the other two. Ginny sat down on the floor, also very pale and clutching her ankle. She didn't seem to be able to answer Harry's question. Luna was standing next to Ginny, looking frightened but not injured.

"I think her ankle's broken," she said, "I heard something crack. Four of them chased us into a room full of planets; it was a very odd place, some of the time we were just floating in the dark –"

"Harry, we saw Uranus up close!" said Ron happily. "Get it, Harry? We saw Uranus – ha ha ha –"

"– anyway, one of them grabbed Ginny's foot, I used the Reductor Curse and blew up Pluto in his face, but ..."

She gestured at Ginny, who had closed her eyes and seemed to be in much pain.

"And what about Ron?" Harry asked.

"I don't know what they hit him with," said Luna, "but he's gone a bit funny, I could hardly get him along at all."

"Harry," said Ron, apparently not concerned about anything that happened, "you know who this girl is, Harry? She's Loony ... Loony Lovegood ... ha ha ha ..."

"We've got to get out of here," said Harry firmly. "Luna, can you help Ginny?"

"Yes," said Luna. She put her wand behind her ear, and pulled Ginny to her feet.

"It's only my ankle, I can do it myself!" said Ginny, but she collapsed immediately.

Harry seized Ron's arm, and dragged him forward to one of the doors. Luna and Ginny started to walk too, and Neville took a deep breath and followed. But they were walking too slowly. Harry had not yet reached the door when another door burst open and three Death Eaters ran in.

"_There they are!_" shrieked Bellatrix.

"_Stupefy!_" yelled another Death Eater. Neville dodged the curse. He wanted very much to hex Bellatrix, but he knew it was more important to get Hermione away from the battle.

Harry was inside the next room already, but he sped out again, without Ron. While Ginny and Luna stepped over the threshold, Harry dragged Neville and Hermione inside too, dodging another Stunner on his way.

"_Colloportus!_" Harry yelled as soon as they were all inside, and three loud crashes were to be heard outside the door.

"It doesn't matter!" said a man's voice from the other side. "There are other ways in – WE'VE GOT THEM, THEY'RE HERE!"

Neville lowered Hermione to the floor just beside the door. He didn't know if they could stay here for long, but he just couldn't hold her any longer.

"Luna – Neville – help me!"

Harry had started running through one of the doors, and his intent was clear. The doors needed to be sealed before the Death Eaters could reach them.

Neville started with the doors nearby.  
"_Collobordus_!" he tried, waving with Hermione's wand, but nothing happened.

_Stupid nose!_ He needed to articulate very clearly, otherwise the spell would never work, especially with a strange wand.

"_Collobortus! Collopordus! COL-LO-POR-TUS!_"

Finally a jet of light flew from his wand to the door. Neville quickly ran to the next one.

"_Collobordus! Colloportus!_"

From somewhere on the other side of the room, he heard Luna yell:

"_Collo–_ _aaaaaaaaaaargh_ ..."

Luna flew through the room, hit a desk and fell on the floor, while several Death Eaters came in through the door she had been trying to seal.

"Get Potter!" Bellatrix cried.

Harry ran away from her, back to the other side of the room, but halfway he met Ron, who was swaying slightly.

"Hey!" said Ron. "Hey, Harry, there are _brains_ in here, ha ha ha, isn't that weird, Harry?"

He was pointing his wand to the tank filled with a green potion and a couple of brains.

"Ron, get out of the way, get down –" Harry said, but Ron didn't listen.

"Honest, Harry, they're brains – look – _Accio brain!_"

Everyone watched as one of the brains flew into the air, and then soared towards Ron. Long tentacles were unravelling in the air.

"Ha ha ha, Harry, look at it –" Ron said, "Harry, come and touch it; bet it's weird –"

"RON, NO!" Harry shouted.

Ron caught the brain in his arm, and immediately the ribbons wrapped themselves around his arms.

"Harry, look what's happen– No – no – I don't like it – no, stop – _stop_ –"

Neville could see the thin ribbons properly now. Moving images, like photographs, were printed on them.

"_Diffindo!_" Harry bellowed, but the tentacles didn't break. They just wrapped themselves more tightly around Ron.

Ron was pulling at the ribbons, but it didn't work. His arms were bound tightly to his chest, and while he tried to free them, he fell over. He hit the ground with a loud crash.

"Harry, it'll suffocate him!" Ginny screamed in panic, but next moment she was hit by a Stunner and lay unconscious on the floor.

Neville pointed Hermione's wand at the Death Eaters who seemed to be happy with the distraction of the brain.

"_STUBEFY! STUBEFY! STUBEFY!_"

Nothing happened, and Neville couldn't convince his mouth to speak properly any more. The blood that was still streaming from his nose was not helping matters at all.

Next moment Neville needed to dodge a Stunner sent by one of the Death Eaters. Two others were sending streams of silver light to both him and Harry, which missed only by inches.

Harry started to run away, the prophecy held high above his head. The Death Eaters all went after him. After a moment of hesitation, Neville started to go after Harry as well, but then he caught sight of Ron.

One of the multicoloured tentacles had wrapped itself around Ron's neck, and was quite successfully trying to strangle him. Ron's pale face was growing purple, and he had stopped fighting the brain.

Neville dashed forward and grabbed the ribbon with both hands. He pulled, and managed to free Ron's neck. Ron opened his eyes and gazed into Neville's face. Then he focused on Neville's hands, holding the ribbon. Next moment, he was pulling another ribbon off his neck, while three tentacles were spinning themselves around his head.

Neville tried to break the ribbon he was holding, but the slimy thing just bent double. Then he put his foot on it and crushed it. That seemed to work. The ribbon was now hanging limply off the brain.

"NOOOO!" Ron screamed. His eyes were rolling in his head, and his hands were blindly groping in the air. Finally they found the brain. Neville seized the brain too with both of his hands. Together they managed to pull it away from Ron's body. The tentacles were forced to leave Ron's head and settled around his arms again.

Neville let go of the brain. Ron would be doing all right. He really needed to go and help Harry, who was fighting all those Death Eaters.

"I have do go and helb Harry, now," he said. "Keeb fighding, Ron!"

He ran away from Ron. Just before he left the room, he looked back once. Ron was still fighting the brain. Luna was lying on the floor close to him. He couldn't see Hermione, but he knew she was lying on the opposite side of the room, near the door to the circular hallway. Behind an overturned desk, he could just see Ginny's legs.

Neville's insides boiled with anger again. The Death Eaters had done this all to his friends. They would pay for it.

He walked through the door Harry had gone through earlier, and found himself on the top bench of the room with the creepy stone archway. Harry was cornered by several Death Eaters.

"You, see," Lucius Malfoy was saying, "there are ten of us and only one of you ... or hasn't Dumbledore ever taught you how to count?"

"He's dot alone!" Neville yelled angrily. "He's still god be!"

He gripped Hermione's wand tightly and ran down the stone steps.

"Neville – no – go back to Ron –" Harry said, but Neville didn't want to hear that. Harry couldn't and wouldn't do this alone.

"STUBEFY! STUBEFY!" he shouted, pointing at one of the Death Eaters. It didn't work, of course. No matter how much he tried to pronounce it properly, it just didn't work. "STUBE–"

His arms were grabbed from behind. A muscle in his shoulder protested, but the pain was nothing compared to what he felt in his nose. He kicked, but the Death Eater didn't loosen his grip. The other Death Eaters laughed.

"It's Longbottom, isn't it?" sneered Lucius Malfoy. "Well, your grandmother is used to losing family members to our cause ... your death will not come as a great shock."

There was a pounding in Neville's ears. He kicked the Death Eater who was holding him everywhere he could reach him.

"Longbottom?" a harsh female voice said. "Why, I have had the pleasure of meeting your parents, boy."

Neville saw Bellatrix stepping forwards out of the crowd of Death Eaters. The pounding in his ears became louder than ever, and he didn't want to do anything but hurt her.

"I DOE YOU HAB!" he roared.

"Someone Stun him!" a man's voice shouted in his ear.

"No, no, no," said Bellatrix. "No, let's see how long Longbottom lasts before he cracks like his parents ... unless Potter wants to give us the prophecy."

Neville priorities shifted at once. He still wanted to hurt Bellatrix, but he even more wanted the prophecy to be safe.

"DON'D GIB ID DO DEM!" he bellowed, while he saw Bellatrix coming nearer, an insane smile on her face. "DON'D GIB ID DO DEM, HARRY!"

"_Crucio!_"

The world dissolved in pain. Nothing but pain. He had never felt anything like it. He knew he was screaming –

And it stopped. He was lying on the ground, sobbing because there didn't seem to be anything else to do.

"That was just a taster!" shrieked Bellatrix somewhere above him. "Now, Potter, either give us the prophecy or watch your little friend die the hard way!"

The words took some time to penetrate Neville's brain. But then he understood. He looked up. Harry was holding out his hand with the tiny glass ball in it. Lucius Malfoy was grinning maniacally while he stretched out his hand to take it.

At that very moment, two doors burst open and five people came running into the room. At once Harry drew back his arm and Lucius Malfoy turned around to face the newly arrived ones.

Neville also gazed upwards. A woman with bubblegum pink hair was sending curse after curse downwards. Neville rolled over to avoid being hit with one of them, and saw a Death Eater near him fall on the floor. A tall, black man was running around to the other side and attacking Death Eaters from there. Two people Neville knew, Professor Lupin and Professor Moody, were darting down the benches, shooting jets of light in every direction. The fifth rescuer, a man with black hair, who looked vaguely familiar to Neville, was already duelling in the middle of the room.

Neville stayed close to the ground and tried to get away from the battle. Harry was crawling towards him on the floor.

"Are you OK?" Harry yelled.

"Yes," Neville replied. He carefully looked around for curses and pulled himself up.

"And Ron?"

"I dink he's all righd," said Neville, "he was still fighding de brain when I lefd –"

He saw a flash of light to his right and pulled his hand away just in time – they spell hit the floor and left a crater. Quickly, he stumbled backwards again, but he tripped. He hit the ground hard, and looked up to see the world spinning around him. He blinked a few times. Then he saw a Death Eater strangling a purple-faced Harry, who was waving uselessly with his wand.

Neville's instincts kicked in. He lunged forward and jabbed Hermione's wand firmly in the Death Eater's eye. The Death Eater shouted. Harry freed himself and turned around in one swift movement.

"_STUPEFY!_" he gasped, his face turning back to a more healthy colour.

The Death Eater fell over immediately, and his mask slipped off his face. Neville tried to get a better look, but Harry pulled him aside, as two fiercely duelling people flashed past. As he turned around to the battlefield, he found himself staring to the wand tip of another Death Eater. Before he could even raise Hermione's wand, the Death Eater shouted, "_Tarantallegra!_" and his feet started to tap-dance.

He tried to stay on his feet, but it was impossible. From the ground, while frantically trying to control his feet, he watched as the Death Eater made some strange wand movement.

"_Protego!_" Harry yelled, but despite the shield he was knocked sideways and he tripped over Neville's legs.

"_Accio proph–_"

The black-haired rescuer crashed into the Death Eater and started duelling with him, and Harry was still holding the prophecy. Neville's legs began to hurt. They still didn't want to stop with that stupid tap-dance, and Harry was lying on them.

Now Harry jumped to his feet, pushing one of Neville's legs aside in an unnatural position. Neville quickly rolled over to get more comfortable, but bumped his nose to the floor and cried out in pain.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" Harry yelled at the same time.

"Nice one!" a man's voice shouted. "Now I want you to get out of –"

Neville turned and raised his head to see what was happening.

"Harry, take the prophecy, grab Neville and run!" the man with black hair bellowed, and he ran away shooting curses towards Bellatrix Lestrange.

Neville tried to stand up and help him, but his legs were still totally out of control, and the next moment he couldn't even see Bellatrix any more because two other battling people got into his line of sight.

"Can you stand?" someone yelled in Neville's ear, and looking up he saw it was Harry. "Put your arm round my neck –"

Neville tried to forget Bellatrix and did what he was told. Harry lifted him upwards, but his legs were now flailing even more dangerously. For a fleeting moment, they were standing, Neville leaning heavily on Harry, but then they were knocked over again by Lucius Malfoy. Neville landed a few feet away from Harry, and saw Malfoy bending over Harry, a nasty grin on his face, and his wand threateningly pricking in Harry's chest.

"No – get – off – me ..." Harry yelled. "Neville – catch it!"

Harry launched the prophecy across the floor towards Neville, and Neville caught it safely in both his hands. Malfoy turned and pointed his wand at Neville instead, but Harry felled him with a well-aimed Impediment Curse.

Suddenly Lupin was there. "Harry, round up the others and GO!"

Harry grabbed Neville's robes and heaved him onto the first stone step. Neville's legs painfully hit the edge of the step, but they still didn't stop with the ridiculous tap-dance. Harry lifted him another step. A flash of light came out of nowhere and the stone step below Harry's feet disintegrated, causing Harry to fall back one step.

Neville put the prophecy in his pocket and tried to get himself up with his hands, but it didn't work.

"Come on!" Harry cried. "Just try and push with your legs –"

He seized Neville's robes again and pulled. Neville's robes tore. The tiny glass ball slipped out of his pocket. Neville stretched his arm towards it and Harry also lunged forwards, but one of Neville's flailing legs kicked it. Neville saw it flying through the air and smashing on one of the stone steps. He froze. A figure made of white smoke unfurled itself from the fragments. Neville was shocked to see that the figure resembled Professor Trelawney. She started to speak, but not one word could be heard over the racket around them.

This was the prophecy, and no one heard it. And now it was broken, and could never again be repeated.

"Harry, I'b sorry!" Neville shouted. He tried to turn around and face Harry, but his legs wouldn't cooperate. "I'b so sorry, Harry, I didn'd bean do –"

"It doesn't matter!" Harry yelled. "Just try and stand, let's get out of –"

"_Dubbledore!_" Neville interrupted, for he had spotted the Headmaster of Hogwarts over Harry's shoulder.

"What?" Harry asked surprised.

"DUBBLEDORE!" Neville repeated. He looked in awe at the old man, who was radiating power like Neville never had seen before. He strode down the stone steps, waving his wand, felling and trapping Death Eaters left and right.

But the black-haired man was still duelling with Bellatrix Lestrange. Dumbledore was still too far away from them when Bellatrix hit the man in the chest with a curse.

Harry jumped down the stone steps, but he was too late. The man fell through the stone archway in the middle of the room. He disappeared behind the ragged veil, but he did not seem to appear on the other side of the archway.

Bellatrix shrieked with joy.

Harry yelled, "SIRIUS! SIRIUS!"

So that was the man they went looking for in the Ministry. And now he was gone.

Something else clicked in Neville's mind. Now he remembered where he had seen the face of the man before. This was Sirius Black, the mad murderer. Somehow, though, he seemed very important to Harry.

The room was in chaos. Both Death Eaters and rescuers were lying on the floor, injured or unconscious. Several Death Eaters were trapped by invisible lines, made by Dumbledore, who was still capturing other Death Eaters. The tall, black rescuer was now duelling with Bellatrix. Harry was near the archway, kicking and yelling, while Lupin was restraining him forcibly.

"HE – IS – NOT – DEAD!" Harry roared.

Lucius Malfoy looked up in surprise and laughed coldly. This moment of inattentiveness was used by Dumbledore to Stun him. Two other Death Eaters were disarmed by Dumbledore and put into the middle of the room, surrounded by the invisible barriers.

Lupin dragged Harry away from the archway. Neville carefully slid down the stone steps, ignoring his unwilling legs. Harry was still staring to the archway and didn't seem to notice that Neville was now sitting beside him on the floor.

"Harry?"

Harry looked around. Neville caught his eye and almost jumped. Harry's face was hard, and his eyes were haunted. They resembled the eyes of Sirius Black on the photo's Neville had seen of him. Today, though, the escaped prisoner had looked very different. Very alive.

"Harry ... I'b really sorry ..." Neville said. "Was dad man – was Sirius Black a – a friend of yours?"

Harry nodded.

"Here," said Lupin. He pointed his wand at Neville's legs. "_Finite_."

Finally, his legs were free. They lay still on the floor, just doing nothing at all. It felt wonderful.

"Let's – let's find the others," said Lupin. His voice sounded forced. His eyes were almost as haunted as Harry's. "Where are they all, Neville?"

"Dey're all back dere," said Neville, pointing to the door he had come through. "A brain addacked Ron bud I dink he's all righd – and Hermione's unconscious, bud we could feel a bulse –"

He was interrupted by a loud bang from the other side of the archway. The tall rescuer fell on the ground, howling in pain. Bellatrix Lestrange ran away from him, towards one of the doors. Dumbledore tried to stop her, but failed.

Fury blazed again in Neville, but before he could do anything, Harry had turned around and freed himself from Lupin.

"Harry – no!" Lupin shouted.

"SHE KILLED SIRIUS!" Harry roared. "SHE KILLED HIM – I'LL KILL HER!"

Neville had never seen Harry this angry. In the first lesson with Umbridge, he had been very angry, but still quite calm. Now Neville was sure Harry didn't realise what he was doing and what the consequences would be. He was probably about to do something very stupid.

Harry jumped up the stone benches and raced through the door, back to the room where the others were, chasing Bellatrix.

Neville stayed sitting on the ground. He now felt again how much his nose was hurting. He screwed up his face in pain, and looked around. Moody was bending over the female rescuer, tapping her with his wand, but she was still unconscious. Behind the archway, the tall rescuer was sitting up, rubbing his head.

Lupin and Dumbledore were talking in low voices. Finally, they seemed to agree. Lupin nodded shortly and walked out of the room through one of the many doors. Dumbledore walked to Moody and shortly inspected the female rescuer. Then he turned to the archway.

"Kingsley, could you help us, please? " he asked the tall rescuer. "We need to get Tonks and the students back in the Brain Room to the hospital wing of Hogwarts. Alastor, could you keep an eye on those for me?" he added to Moody.

He cast a last spell on the Death Eaters grouped in the middle of the room – all of which were Stunned or Petrified or looking very disgruntled with being captured – and conjured a stretcher. He lifted the woman called Tonks on it and floated her up the stone steps.

The tall, black rescuer had scrambled to his feet and now walked slowly across the room, until he reached Neville.

"Can you stand, boy?" he asked in a deep, slow voice.

"I – I don'd doe," Neville stuttered.

The man seized his arms and pulled him up. Neville carefully put some weight on his legs. He stayed upright, even when the man released him. Very slowly, they walked up the stone steps. Neville's whole body ached with every movement. He also became aware of the fact that his face, his hands and the front of his robes were besmirched with blood.

After what seemed an eternity, they arrived at the top of the room. They followed Dumbledore through the door back to the room where the other students were.

The floor of the Brain Room was splattered with green potion and brains. The tentacles of the brains were wriggling. It was as if the brains were tickled continually. Not far from the puddle of green liquid, Luna was sitting against a desk. Her eyes were unfocused, but she didn't seem to be gravely injured.

At the opposite end of the room, Hermione was still lying unconscious. Dumbledore had just talked to Ginny, who was sitting on the floor, and now moved towards Hermione.

Ron was standing in the middle of the room, smiling vaguely. Deep scars were on his arms, where his robes were ripped, and on his neck and face. He didn't seem to care at all.

Kingsley conjured up some stretchers, while Dumbledore pointed his wand to a desk.

"_Portus!_"

The desk glowed blue for a couple of seconds. Dumbledore quietly talked to Kingsley and then left. Kingsley turned to Neville.

"Lie down on this, boy," he said. "In this condition, you can't take the Portkey standing."

Neville climbed onto the stretcher. He still felt far from comfortable. His nose was hurting so much he wondered how he ever had been able to continue fighting. The aches in his muscles, caused by his short experience with the Cruciatus Curse, also didn't go away.

Kingsley had put everyone on a stretcher, and floated them towards the desk, turned into a Portkey. Neville reached out to touch the surface of the desk.

"There we go," Kingsley's deep voice said. "One – two – three –"

Neville felt a jerk behind his navel and found himself in the familiar swirl of colours, on his way to Hogwarts.


	5. Ginny

**Planets, Brains and Curses** Chapter Five: Ginny

Ginny was watching the glass balls, trying to decide which emotion in her was dominating. She was angry, because they had risked their lives and were facing expulsion from Hogwarts, to achieve nothing at all. She also was starting to doubt Harry's sanity, because he had been convinced that Sirius was being tortured here, while, quite clearly, that wasn't the case – and Harry had finally admitted that too. She was also scared, because nothing here seemed natural. The dimly lit rooms with various magical objects, this huge chamber full of tiny glass balls, and above all, the fact that everything had gone smoothly. The doors had opened to them without resistance, they hadn't met a single person, and coincidentally, they had found a glass ball with Harry's name on the label.

Now Harry reached out towards the ball, and picked it up. He looked at it. The others looked at it. The ball glowed dully. And all of a sudden, someone spoke behind Ginny, although she was sure that no one had been standing behind her.

"Very good, Potter," a drawling voice said. "Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."

A shiver crept down Ginny's spine when she recognised the voice. The man who spoke was the one responsible for her horrible first year at Hogwarts. This was the man her father hated more than anyone. Lucius Malfoy.

More black-robed people were materialising around them. Ginny couldn't help it – she gasped in horror when she counted a dozen of them.

"To me, Potter," repeated Lucius Malfoy. "To me."

Ginny couldn't think straight. They were being attacked by Death Eaters. What was she supposed to do now? What would Bill do? Her mind stayed empty.

"Where's Sirius?" Harry asked brutally.

Harry was so brave, he always knew what to do. He had already faced You-Know-Who in full power, and escaped him plus more than a dozen Death Eaters. And now he was talking to Malfoy. Ginny's numb brain wasn't able to comprehend exactly what was being said, but it sounded to her like absolute nonsense.

Beside her, Ron stirred. He had his wand raised in front of his chest. Ginny looked down to her own wand. She didn't feel it, because her hands had turned into ice. Her legs resembled sand-filled bags, and her head seemed too heavy for her neck. Even if there was a way out, she wasn't sure she could run.

Then she looked again at Ron. He had done a couple of really dangerous things in his life, something that seemed inevitable when you were friends with Harry Potter. But he had never faced Death Eaters before. Yet he was looking fiercely at them, while standing a bit closer to Ginny than to any of the others. He probably thought he needed to protect her.

It was like Ginny's brain woke up after a long sleep. She straightened her shoulders and turned her head in a challenge towards the hooded figures. Ron didn't need to protect her. She could protect herself.

"Now give me the prophecy," Malfoy said, "or we start using wands."

"Go on, then," Harry said. He raised his wand, and so did Ginny.

"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt."

Harry laughed. "Yeah, right. I give you this – prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"

One of the Death Eaters jumped forward and shrieked: "_Accio proph–_"

"_Protego!_" Harry yelled.

"Oh, he knows how to play, little baby Potter," the attacking Death Eater, who sounded female, said. "Very well, then –"

"I TOLD YOU, NO!" Lucius Malfoy bellowed. "If you smash it –!"

The woman stepped away from her fellow Death Eaters, pulling off her hood. Ginny thought she recognised her as one of the Death Eaters who had escaped Azkaban earlier this year.

"You need more persuasion?" the woman harshly. "Very well – take the smallest one. Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I'll do it."

Ginny only realised that the woman was talking about her when all of the others closed in around her. And that was a good thing, because she might have punched that disgusting woman if she had understood when she could still reach her.

"You'll have to smash this," Harry said, holding the dusty ball up to his chest, "if you want to attack any of us. I don't think your boss will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?"

The woman did not reply, and none of the Death Eaters attacked, so Ginny supposed she was rather safe. The others still pressed in on her, though. She could feel Hermione's chest rising and falling quickly, and Neville's body shaking.

"So, what kind of prophecy are we talking about, anyway?" Harry asked conversationally.

Ginny tuned him out. She didn't want to know what the glass ball – the prophecy – had to do with anything, she only wanted to know how to get out alive.

She shivered, but tried not to think about what could happen if something went wrong. She focused instead on what curses she could use on the Death Eaters. The Bad Bogey Hex had worked very well on Malfoy Junior, but she doubted it would be enough to eliminate Malfoy Senior.

The DA. Of course. She hadn't followed those lessons from Harry for nothing. What had Harry told them about the spells that had served him best in his encounters with Death Eaters and You-Know-Who? Ginny thought hard. _Stupefy_, naturally, and _Expelliarmus_. But that didn't seemed nearly enough against a dozen Death Eaters. But she knew more. _Protego_, Harry had just used it. _Impedimenta_, _Petrificus Totalus_, _Locomotor Mortis_.

Ginny almost jumped when an elbow suddenly connected with her ribs. Although she hadn't been listening, she had kept one eye on what was happening. She had witnessed a fight between Malfoy and the female Death Eater, and two ghostlike figures which had emerged from shattered glass balls. But she hadn't expected someone to nudge her in her ribs.

Hermione bent towards her.

"Smash the shelves when Harry says _now. _Use _Reducto_. Tell Ron."

Ginny nodded and turned slightly, so she could see Ron in the corner of her eye.

"_Ron!_" she whispered.

Ron looked around a bit too conspicuous, but as Harry was distracting the Death Eaters with his endless questions about that dusty glass ball, that didn't matter.

"What is it?" Ron muttered.

"The moment Harry says _now_," Ginny said without looking to Ron, "we'll smash the shelves holding the glass balls. Use _Reducto_. Do you understand?"

Ron probably nodded, but Ginny wasn't looking his way and didn't see it.

Harry was still talking to the Death Eaters, but Ginny knew he was only distracting them and waiting for the right moment to strike. She concentrated on her right hand gripping her wand and waited.

"NOW!" Harry finally yelled.

Ginny pointed her wand to the shelves and shouted together with the others: "_REDUCTO!_"

The effect was tremendous. Several shelves exploded, glass balls smashed into the floor. A white cloud unfurled from the fragments of glass. People were shouting. A Death Eater advanced on Ginny, but she aimed her wand and said quietly: "_Impedimenta!_"

Then Ginny's arm was seized by her brother and they ran together through the mist and past the confused Death Eaters to the end of the row. They literally ran for their lives, keeping only one thing in mind: escape. They turned left and Ron released Ginny's arm, which was lucky, because Ginny spotted a door ahead, and sprinted towards it. She smashed bodily into the door, fumbling with the doorknob, and somehow opened it.

Ron and Luna burst through the door after her, slamming the door shut behind them. Harry, Hermione and Neville were nowhere to be seen. Ginny could only hope they were safe.

"Not much space for hiding here," Luna said matter-of-factly.

Ginny turned around and spotted at once several doors in the room, which was crammed with desks.

"Let's try one of the doors," she said.

They rushed forward, dodging desks, but they weren't even halfway when another door burst open.

"_STUPEFY!_" someone shouted.

Ginny flung herself to the ground and hid behind a desk. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw that, three desks away, Luna ducked just in time to avoid the red jet of light.

They started moving again immediately, knowing the Death Eaters were at least a dozen desks behind. They stayed low, to avoid being hexed, but they couldn't move very fast that way. Then another couple of Death Eaters entered the room through a door close by, and they didn't have a choice. Pandemonium reigned in the next few minutes. The Death Eaters shouted. Flashes of light flew across the room. Ginny, Ron and Luna zigzagged between the desks. A large desk crashed into the floor, causing the whole room to shake. A Death Eater screamed.

Maybe it was their luck, maybe the Death Eaters didn't aim well in their haste to get to the opposite side of the room, maybe Ginny, Ron and Luna were just very skillful, but they reached the door without being hit once. Ron grabbed Ginny roughly and pushed her through the open door. Luna was already inside.

With a start Ginny realised that in the pitch-black room there was nothing to stand on. She was just drifting in nothing. Someone slammed the door shut. Ginny supposed it was Ron. She felt Luna beside her. Her heart was hammering in her chest. They were safe, however short that would be.

They tried to plough their way through the dark, but it was tremendously difficult. They couldn't see anything except a kind of glowing ball ahead. Ginny had the frightening feeling they had only managed to move a few feet when the door opened and the Death Eaters burst in.

"_STUPEFY! STUPEFY! STUPEFY!_" one of them started to shout after about a second. Ginny guessed that that second of respite was thanks to the absence of a floor, which hopefully would hinder the Death Eaters just as much as her and her friends.

One of the Stunners went straight towards Ginny. Although she avoided being hit with it, it was a close shave, and the Death Eaters noticed her face in the light.

"There they are!" a man's voice shouted triumphantly.

Luna suddenly disappeared from Ginny's side. Trying not to panic, Ginny moved as fast as possible in the direction of the red ball, fervently hoping that Luna and Ron were aiming for the ball too.

She noticed it was spinning when she passed it. There was a strange spot on the ball. Ginny recognised it at once as the eye of Jupiter. She quickly looked around, squinting in the dark. A bit further she spotted another ball. Judging by the amount of rings around it, it was Saturn. Ginny felt a bit better now she knew what this room was about, although she would have felt much better if those Death Eaters hadn't been a couple of yards behind her.

Suddenly there was a floor. Ginny started to run. She could now move at least three times as fast, and Saturn was growing considerably larger.

The Death Eaters were far behind now. Ginny could hear them shouting, but couldn't make out the words. Occasionally, a colourful flash of light passed, but none of them came close to her. She hoped the others were also all right, but she didn't hear or see anything of them.

Finally, Ginny passed Saturn, and at the same time, the floor disappeared. She didn't really know what the purpose was of following the planets, but they were the only beacons she had. Not far ahead, she spotted Uranus. All of the outer planets seemed to be on this side of the sun, or maybe they always were in this weird room.

Ginny was about halfway between Saturn and Uranus when she heard a dull crash behind her. She stopped and waited. Was that Ron or Luna? But nothing more could be heard. Ginny turned towards Uranus again. She couldn't afford to linger. The floor started again here, and she could walk a bit faster.

When she had almost reached Uranus, someone started shouting.

"Hey, what's this? What are you doing?" Ron yelled at the top of his voice. He sounded a bit drunk, but Ginny didn't have the slightest idea how he could've got drunk in this dark room full of planets.

"What's that? Hey, it's Uranus!" Ron shouted. "Uranus! I can see Uranus!"

Ginny knew Ron would never say that while he was aware of being chased by a couple of Death Eaters. Something was definitely wrong. Had they perhaps Obliviated him?

A flash of light showed Ron lying on the floor and Luna sitting beside him, a few feet behind Ginny. She was already moving towards them when Luna said desperately: "Ginny! Help me!"

Ron was laughing.

Dodging a curse, Ginny managed to get to Luna and Ron. "I'm right here. What happened to Ron?"

"I don't know, but we need to get out of here, quickly!" Luna said urgently.

"Ginny, are you also here?" Ron asked. "Why is it so dark?"

Ginny couldn't decide whether she was happy that Ron at least still knew her name or desperate as Ron clearly hadn't got a clue where he was. She just grabbed him and helped Luna to drag him over the floor. Ron didn't even seem to consider standing up and walking.

They had lost precious time, and couldn't move very fast, while the Death Eaters probably had reached the piece of floor between Jupiter and Saturn. The spells were now clearly distinguishable.

"_Expelliarmus!_"

Luna ducked in time, and the Disarming Spell hit Neptune. The planet was thrown through the space and continued his orbit several feet away from where he had been first.

"Do you see the planets?" Ron said. "Neptune was moving ... ha ha ha ..."

"_Petrificus Totalus!_"

It was Ginny's turn to duck, while Luna pointed her wand to the source of the flash: "_Stupefy!_"

"Hey, look!" Ron said. "Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are in one line ... ha ha ... that means grave danger is coming ... ha ha ha ..."

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

Ginny felt her chest constricting with fear at hearing those words. Her instincts told her to get down. She threw herself to the floor, and pulled Ron down with her. The green light flew over their heads and disappeared in the dark.

They pulled Ron to his feet and ran, dragging him with them. Ron was now running by himself. Although he didn't run very quickly, they could move easier and faster. They had almost reached Pluto now.

"_Expelliarmus!_" a rough man's voice shouted near them.

"_Protego!_" yelled Ginny just in time. The curse bounced and the man howled when he was hit with it.

They managed to reach Pluto, but the floor ceased to exist again, and Ron fell. Ginny and Luna were also pulled to the ground, and they couldn't get up in time. Someone grabbed Ginny's foot and pulled. Ginny yelled in surprise. She tried to pull herself loose, but the Death Eater was holding her foot in a strong grip.

"_Reducto!_" Luna spoke in a calm voice.

Pluto exploded in the face of the Death Eater holding Ginny. He didn't loosen his grip, but turned to ward off the splinters of Pluto raining on him, and something cracked in Ginny's ankle. The pain was horrible. She screamed, and the man finally let go.

Then Luna seized her arm and pulled her through the space, through a door and into the circular hallway.

"Ron! Ginny – are you all –?"

Ginny looked up and was for a moment distracted from the pain in her ankle. Harry was dashing towards them, looking extremely worried. A large bruise disfigured his face, and his glasses were slightly askew. Behind him Neville was standing. Neville looked horrible. The lower half of his face was covered with blood. There was also blood on his hands and robes. But worst of all was Hermione. Lying over Neville's shoulder, she was clearly unconscious, and very pale. There was no blood, but she seemed barely alive.

Ron staggered towards Harry and grabbed the front of his robes.

"Harry," he said giggling, "there you are ... ha ha ha ... you look funny, Harry ... you're all messed up ..."

Ron sank to the floor, pulling Harry with him. Ginny noticed that blood was trickling out of Ron's mouth. His face was very white. It scared Ginny even more now than back in the room with planets, where she hadn't been able to see him.

"Ginny?" Harry asked fearfully. "What happened?"

But Luna had released Ginny and she stood on her injured leg. She just shook her head and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realised that they were still being chased by Death Eaters, and that she couldn't just sit down and wait for it to be over, but she didn't care.

"I think her ankle is broken," Luna whispered. "Four of them chased us into a dark room full of planets; it was a very odd place, some of the time we were just floating in the dark –"

"Harry, we saw Uranus up close!" said Ron groggily. "Get it, Harry? We saw Uranus – ha ha ha –"

Ginny closed her eyes. She didn't want to see Ron in this condition.

"– anyway," Luna continued as if nothing had happened, "one of them grabbed Ginny's foot, I used the Reductor Curse and blew up Pluto in his face, but ..."

Her voice trailed off.

"And what about Ron?" Harry said over Ron's feeble giggles.

"I don't know what they hit him with," said Luna, "but he's gone a bit funny, I could hardly get him along at all."

Ron started to whisper something, but Ginny concentrated hard on not listening to him. He had certainly gone 'a bit funny'.

"We've got to get out of here," Harry's confident voice said. "Luna, can you help Ginny?"

"Yes," replied Luna.

Ginny felt Luna's arm around her waist, but she didn't want to be helped. Harry needed Luna, who was still uninjured and able to fight.

"It's only my ankle," she said, "I can do it myself!"

She tried to stand up, but the moment she put weight on her injured leg, it collapsed. Pain seared through her ankle and she decided grudgingly that she could use Luna's help after all.

They were an odd group. Harry pulled Ron towards a door, followed by Ginny and Luna, and Neville, carrying Hermione. But they hadn't even reached the door when another door burst open. Three Death Eaters burst into the hall.

"_There they are!_" a woman shrieked.

"_Stupefy! STUPEFY!_" the other two shouted.

Luna and Ginny ducked to avoid one of the curses, and Luna started to run. Ginny was pulled forward and pain seared through her injured leg while she tried and failed to keep it from hitting the ground.

"_Colloportus!_" Harry bellowed when they had all entered. Outside the room, a few bodies smashed into the sealed door.

"It doesn't matter!" said one of the Death Eaters. "There are other ways in – WE'VE GOT THEM, THEY'RE HERE!"

"Luna – Neville – help me!" Harry shouted.

Luna released Ginny, who staggered a few steps but then collapsed and sat against a desk. They were back in the room with the brains. Hermione was lying close to the door leading to the circular hallway. Harry, Luna and Neville were running through the rooms sealing all the doors. They didn't take much care of the desks that were all around the room, and one of them was knocked over. When Luna reached a door at the opposite side of the room, which Ginny couldn't see because of the large tank with brains in the middle of the room, she was blasted away by the Death Eaters bursting through it. She ended up lying on the floor unconscious. Ginny felt weak, vulnerable and above all angry with herself, because she wasn't able to help and could only look how her friends got hurt.

"Get Potter!" a female Death Eater shrieked hysterically.

Harry came running back towards Ginny, but there he met Ron.

"Hey!" said Ron. "Hey, Harry, there are _brains_ in here, ha ha ha, isn't that weird, Harry?"

"Ron, get out of the way, get down –" Harry said urgently.

"Honest, Harry, they're brains – look – _Accio brain!_"

One of the brains burst from the green liquid and sailed into the air. Then it changed direction and soared towards Ron. Long, thin ribbons unfurled themselves from the brain. They were very colourful, and Ginny thought she saw moving images on it.

"Ha ha ha, Harry, look at it –" Ron said excited, "Harry, come and touch it; bet it's weird –"

"RON, NO!" Harry roared.

To her horror, Ginny saw Ron stretching out his arms and catching the brain in his hands. The strange ribbons immediately started to wrap themselves around his outstretched arms.

"Harry, look what's happen–" Ron said a bit fearfully now, "No – no – I don't like it – no, stop – _stop_ –"

The tentacles were spinning around Ron's chest now, and Ginny sat watching, immobilised by her broken ankle.

"_Diffindo!_" Harry yelled, but it didn't have any effect at all.

Ron fell over now, still fighting, but the tentacles etched themselves into his skin and Ron couldn't get them off.

"Harry, it'll suffocate him!" Ginny screamed panicking.

"_Stupefy!_" said one of the Death Eaters. Ginny saw the red light coming, but wasn't able to get away from it. The curse hit her in the face and everything went black.

Ginny woke up with a searing pain in her ankle. It didn't take her long to realise where she was. She opened her eyes and sat up. Her head ached, and the world was spinning slowly. She blinked a few times and could see properly again. The Death Eaters were gone. Harry and Neville were also gone. The only sound came from Ron, who was trashing around on the floor, still fighting with the brain. He had freed one arm, but the tentacles were now also wrapped around his head. With his free arm, he pointed his wand to the brain, and said clearly: "_Expelliarmus!_"

Only one of the tentacles released him, but there were at least ten others still enfolding him. Ginny knew she would never be able to get to Ron with her broken ankle, and she abandoned the thought of casting spells from her position. The chance of hitting Ron and injuring him even more was much too big.

"_Incendio!_" Ron tried, but the foggy brain didn't catch fire.

Ginny considered yelling to Ron which spells he ought to try, but she found she couldn't think of any useful spells.

"_Rictusempra!_" Ron bellowed.

The tentacles started wriggling. One by one, they released Ron, and the brain was rocking on the floor. Ron freed himself and Banished the brain back to its tank.

A wave of relief washed over Ginny. Ron was saved – at least, from the brain. She still didn't have a clue what had hit him in the room full of planets, and her hopes that he might have recovered while she had been Stunned, disappeared at once when Ron caught her eye and giggled.

Ginny felt horrible. Her ankle was broken and hurt very much, her head ached, and her brother didn't know where he was. To make things worse, Ginny could now clearly see deep welts on his arms and even on his head and neck.

Suddenly a door burst open. Mad-Eye Moody, Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt ran into the room.

"What happened?" asked Tonks. "Ron? Ginny? Are you all right?"

While Ron just giggled, Ginny forced herself to speak. "Never mind us. Harry and Neville are fighting about ten Death Eaters somewhere."

Moody didn't waste any time and ran as fast as he could with his wooden leg to a door at the other side of the room. Tonks and Kingsley followed. Ginny hoped they would find Harry and Neville soon, and that it wouldn't be too late.

Ron was now walking. He swayed with every step, but he didn't seem to mind. When he reached Ginny, he said: "What is this room, Ginny? Why are we here? And what are Moody and Tonks and Kingsley doing here?"

Ginny looked up to her brother's face. Red lines stood out sharply against the extremely pale skin. There was some dried blood on his chin. He wasn't giggling now, he looked almost serious. Ginny decided to give it a try.

"I don't know, Ron," she said. "Can you remember what happened to you?"

Ron's face lit up and he gazed at her with unfocused eyes.

"Oh yes, I can remember lots of things!" he said. "Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were on one line. Then we met Harry. But he walked away, and a brain attacked me. It was talking to me in my head, it was very strange. I've tickled it, and now everything is all right again."

Instead of being reassured, Ginny was now even more worried. Ron clearly didn't remember anything that had happened before he was hit with the unknown curse. Even worse, during his fight with the brain he had supposedly heard voices in his head.

Ginny sighed and averted her eyes. She couldn't stand to look at Ron's face any longer.

Ron walked to the door leading to the circular hall, and Ginny pointedly stared at the door at the opposite side of the room. She hated herself for not being able to help her brother. It had to be hard on him too, not knowing where he was or what had happened. But she just didn't want to think about what it would mean if the curse was irreversible, and not looking at Ron was the best way to achieve that.

While she was staring at the door, it opened. The female Death Eater who had lost control a few times in the room with glass balls ran through it, cackling madly. Not far behind her, Harry came in. He looked very angry, but physically unhurt. He didn't have the glass ball any more. The woman pointed her wand over her shoulder and yelled a spell that made the tank with brains fly into the air and crash into the floor. Harry was covered with green liquid and brains, but he waved his wand and shouted something intelligible. The brains flew into the air again and landed on the floor behind Harry.

"Harry – what –?" Ginny said, but Harry ran past her without even looking at her. He followed the Death Eater back into the circular hallway. The door slammed shut behind him.

Ginny hadn't got a clue what was happening, and now she had something else to worry about. Luna was lying fairly close to where the brains had landed. If one of them could get hold of the unconscious girl, the consequences would be disastrous.

But she hadn't counted on Ron. Her brother was already standing beside the brains and waving his wand at them.

"_Rictusempra!_ _Rictusempra!_" he said happily, hitting the brains one by one with the Tickling Charm.

For some reason, seeing Ron doing this useful task made Ginny even more miserable. _What was wrong with Ron?_

But she was distracted again when Dumbledore entered the room. He was floating a stretcher before him. Ginny recognised the pink hair that peeked over the edge of the stretcher immediately. Her insides turned into ice. Dumbledore abandoned the stretcher, bent over Luna and said something to her. Luna moved a bit and Ginny heaved a sigh of relief. At least Luna was all right. Dumbledore strode across the room, threw one concerned look at Ron and then turned his attention to Ginny. It wasn't until then that Ginny noticed how old the Headmaster looked.

"Ginny?" Dumbledore enquired quietly. "Are you hurt?"

"My ankle is broken," Ginny said. "But Hermione's been unconscious for a long time, and Ron is acting strange."

Dumbledore nodded gravely. "I'll have a look at them."

He walked to Hermione and inspected her. At the same moment, Kingsley and Neville entered at the other side of the room. Neville had some difficulty with walking, and Kingsley was bleeding from his head. It seemed no one except Dumbledore had come out of the battle uninjured. Harry was possibly still in the company of a Death Eater. Kingsley started conjuring stretchers, while Dumbledore spoke quickly to Ron. Then he turned to a desk near him and pointed his wand to it.

"_Portus_," he said.

The desk glowed blue for a few seconds. Dumbledore spoke a few words to Kingsley, who was lifting Luna on the first stretcher, and strode out of the room. He seemed in a hurry. Ginny hoped he was going after Harry, and that he was still in time.

In the next few minutes, everyone was lifted on a stretcher, and the stretchers were grouped around the desk Dumbledore had turned into a Portkey.

"Ginny, could you hold Hermione?" Kingsley asked.

Ginny wordlessly grabbed Hermione's arm in her left hand, and touched the Portkey with her right. Kingsley waited until everyone was touching the desk, then touched both the desk and Tonks himself.

"There we go," he said. "One – two – three –"

Ginny felt the familiar jerk behind her navel. They were finally on their way back to Hogwarts.


	6. Lucius

**AN: I'm really sorry about being away so long, so I'm gonna be posting up the next chapters as quickly as I can; hopefully within the next week or so.** **Planets, Brains and Curses** Chapter Six: Lucius Malfoy

Rarely was anything perfect, but this was very nearly perfect. Finally, after months of preparation, the moment of obtaining the prophecy was there. Lucius Malfoy looked around. He had just cast the last Invisibility Charms, for those idiots who couldn't do it themselves, and now they were standing at the end of the row, about twenty-five feet away from Potter and his friends, who were staring at the prophecy. The Dark Lord's latest brilliant plan had worked well. They had been waiting for weeks for the carefully placed sensors to go off, but Potter hadn't come, until the Dark Lord had showed him the vision of his godfather Black being tortured this afternoon.

And now Potter was standing there, right in front of the prophecy. He was accompanied by five friends – or rather, he was being angry at his friends, who were trying to prevent him from taking the prophecy; didn't they know that Potter always had it his way anyway? Six students was more than they had counted on, but that wasn't a problem. They were only children after all. Twelve Death Eaters was still enough. And it was more than the other days they had been waiting for Potter to arrive. This day, Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange had been added to the group. Lucius knew Bellatrix was the Dark Lord's favourite, and he was wise enough not to argue the case, but Bellatrix was emotionally unstable. No, the presence of Bellatrix Lestrange was probably the only thing that wasn't perfect tonight.

Potter and his friends had finally finished arguing. Lucius felt the excitement well up while Potter touched the prophecy, grabbed the prophecy, lifted the prophecy. And held the prophecy. But that wouldn't be for long. Lucius quickly crossed the distance to the group of children and reversed the Invisibility Charm.

"Very good, Potter," he said, succeeding in hiding his excitement. "Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me."

The children jumped and turned, while beside Lucius his cohorts appeared. The Weasley girl gave a gasp of horror, and Lucius almost smiled. It seemed that he and his fellows were intimidating enough, and the prophecy would be in his hands soon.

"To me, Potter," he repeated, and held out his hand.

Potter seemed very pale, but he didn't hand over the prophecy.

"To me," Lucius said once again.

"Where's Sirius?" Potter asked.

Stupid boy. He still believed Black was captured. Several Death Eaters laughed.

"The Dark Lord always knows!" Bellatrix said triumphantly.

"Always," agreed Lucius. "Now, give me the prophecy, Potter."

"I want to know where Sirius is!"

Lucius briefly wondered if they could put the boy's stubborn belief to some use, but before he could say anything, Bellatrix spoke.

"_I want to know where Sirius is!_" she said, imitating Potter's slightly panicked voice.

"You've got him," said Potter. "He's here. I know he is."

"_The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo_," mocked Bellatrix, again before Lucius could speak.

"Don't do anything," Potter muttered suddenly. "Not yet –"

Bellatrix shrieked with laughter. "You hear him? _You hear him?_ Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!"

Lucius decided it was time that he took over again.

"Oh, you don't know Potter as I do, Bellatrix," he said softly. "He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. _Now give me the prophecy, Potter,_" he added with some nicely controlled urgency in his voice.

"I know Sirius is here," persisted Potter. His voice was raising slightly. "I know you've got him!"

Lucius laughed along with the rest of the Death Eaters. Bellatrix was laughing almost hysterically.

"It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter," Lucius said coolly. "Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."

"Go on, then," Potter said and all of the children raised their wands.

Stupid boy! Why didn't he just understand that he would never win this game?

"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt," Lucius tried again.

Potter laughed forcedly. "Yeah right! I give you this – prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"

Far too late, Lucius realised that Bellatrix had raised her wand.

"_Accio proph–_"

"_Protego!_" Potter yelled.

Lucius silently cursed the Dark Lord for sending Bellatrix with them.

"Oh, he knows how to play, little baby Potter," she said. "Very well, then –"

"I TOLD YOU, NO!" Lucius roared at Bellatrix. "If you smash it –!"

Bellatrix still didn't seem to understand that it was Lucius who was in charge of the operation. She stepped forward and pulled off her hood. Her eyes were glinting maniacally.

"You need more persuasion?" she said. "Very well – take the smallest one," she ordered Nott, who was nearest to her. "Let him watch while we torture the little girl. I'll do it."

Lucius sighed inwardly. Bellatrix couldn't just order other Death Eaters around while _he_ was the leader! Besides, it was a stupid idea. Potter with his hero complex stepped in front of the Weasley girl, and they couldn't attack Potter as long as he had the prophecy.

"You'll have to smash this if you want to attack any of us," Potter said. "I don't think your boss will be too pleased if you come back without it, will he?"

Lucius cursed under his breath. They weren't any closer to getting the prophecy than ten minutes ago, and he didn't see a simple way out of it. And the worst thing was, that Potter had just voiced exactly what their problem was! The only good thing about their situation was that Bellatrix was lost for words.

"So, what kind of prophecy are we talking about, anyway?" Potter asked.

For a moment, Lucius was unable to speak out of surprise. Again, Bellatrix was the first to react.

"What kind of prophecy?" she asked shrilly. "You jest, Harry Potter."

"Nope, not jesting," said Harry. "How come Voldemort wants it?"

Several Death Eaters hissed, and Lucius suppressed a shudder himself. What was Potter playing at?

"You dare speak his name?" whispered Bellatrix, a dangerous undertone in her voice, but Potter didn't recognise it.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I've got no problem with saying Vol–"

"Shut your mouth!" Bellatrix shrieked. "You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood's tongue, you dare –"

"Did you know he's a half-blood too?" Potter said. "Voldemort? Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad was a Muggle – or has he been telling you lot that he's pure-blood?"

This time Lucius guessed what Bellatrix was planning to do just in time.

"STUPEF–"

"NO!" he shouted, waving his wand furiously to deflect the spell. The jet of light hit a shelf and several glass balls shattered; two white, ghost-like figures started to repeat their prophecies. But Lucius didn't care about that. Bellatrix had just almost shattered the one prophecy they needed.

"DO NOT ATTACK!" he roared. "WE NEED THE PROPHECY!"

"He dares – he dares – he stands there – filthy half-blood –"

But Lucius wasn't interested in Bellatrix's words of defence.

"WAIT UNTIL WE'VE GOT THE PROPHECY!" he bellowed.

Bellatrix seemed to calm down a bit and, after throwing her a furious look, Lucius turned his attention to Potter again. The ghosts of the Seers were gone.

"You haven't told me what's so special about this prophecy I'm supposed to be handing over," Potter said.

"Do not play games with us, Potter," Lucius said, and he noted with some pleasure that Bellatrix kept her mouth shut.

"I'm not playing games," said Potter.

Lucius started to consider the possibility that Potter didn't even know what the prophecy was about. Maybe Dumbledore never told him. But that would have been stupid.

"Dumbledore never told you," Lucius sneered, "the reason you bear that scar was hidden in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries?"

"I – what?" said Harry, and he didn't seem to fake his surprise.

"Can this be?" Lucius said joyously. "Dumbledore never told you? Well, this explains why you didn't come earlier, Potter, the Dark Lord wondered why you didn't come running when he showed you the place where it was hidden in your dreams. He thought natural curiosity would make you want to hear the exact wording ..."

"Did he?" Potter asked, sounding not very interested. "So he wanted me to come and get it, did he? Why?"

"_Why?_" Lucius repeated. "Because the only people who are permitted to retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, Potter, are those about whom it was made, as the Dark Lord discovered when he attempted to use others to steal it for him."

"And why did he want to steal a prophecy about me?" Potter asked.

"About both of you, Potter," Lucius replied, "about both of you ... haven't you ever wondered why the Dark Lord tried to kill you as a baby?"

He was happy to tell Potter all these things. Potter's attitude seemed to have changed. Maybe they were finally one step closer to getting the prophecy.

"Someone made a prophecy about Voldemort and me?" Potter said.

Lucius glanced at Bellatrix when Potter said the name again, but she did nothing.

"And he's made me come and get it for him?" Potter continued. "Why couldn't he come and get it himself?"

"Get it himself?" shrieked Bellatrix suddenly. "The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?"

Lucius was alert. Any wrong movement of Bellatrix, and this time he would just Stun her. He couldn't keep risking smashing the prophecy. And he was the leader anyway.

"So he's got you doing his dirty work for him, has he?" Potter said. "Like he tried to get Sturgis to steal it – and Bode?"

Lucius was surprised. Apparently, Potter wasn't ignorant about everything.

"Very good, Potter, very good ..." he said slowly. "But the Dark Lord knows you are not unintell–"

"NOW!" yelled Potter, taking Lucius by surprise.

"REDUCTO!" the children yelled.

The effect was instantaneous. Splinters of wood and fragments of glass were flying through the room. Several Seers were unleashed from their glass balls and reciting prophecies. Dust was everywhere. Lucius shouted when a shelf fell down and hit him hard on the head. He shielded his face with his arms and tried to see what was happening at the same time. People were running, but he didn't know whether they were students or Death Eaters. Bellatrix shrieked, and Lucius took a few steps in her direction, with the intention of checking whether she was doing something stupid again, but someone staggered backwards and knocked into him, blocking his view. With thunderous crashes, shelves upon shelves collapsed.

Finally, it stopped. When all the Seers were gone, Lucius could see the floor, littered with fragments of glass and the shelves, or what was left of them. Very few glass balls in this part of the row were still intact. Several Death Eaters were lying on the ground, some scrambling to their feet, others unconscious. And the children were gone.

"Come with me!" Lucius barked, and he strode back to the end of the row. There were several doors to his left and right. They could have gone through any of them. He turned and saw that a few of the Death Eaters carried someone. It was Nott. He was bleeding quite badly, shards of glass sticking out of several places of his body. He moaned, but Lucius didn't care.

"Leave Nott, _leave him, I say_ – his injuries will be nothing to the Dark Lord compared to losing that prophecy. Jugson, come back here, we need to organise!"

The Death Eaters left Nott and grouped around Lucius.

"We'll split into pairs and search," he commanded, "and don't forget, be gentle with Potter until we've got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary." He scrutinised his cohorts carefully, trying to decide on the most useful way of splitting up. "Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left; Crabbe, Rabastan, go right – Jugson, Dolohov, the door straight ahead – Macnair and Avery, through here – Rookwood, over there – Mulciber, come with me!"

Everyone obeyed immediately. Lucius tried to recall the map of the Department of Mysteries, while he walked past the rows with Mulciber at his side. Finally, he opened a door, and even before he had entered, movement caught his eye.

"_Stupefy!_" he shouted.  
"_Petrif_–" Mulciber started, but he didn't finished the curse, and it was obvious to Lucius why.

The room didn't contain any people. It was full of moving things. Chairs, desks, drawers, teacups, towels, spoons, whole bathtubs and a few things he didn't recognised, were walking through the room. He had just Stunned a wardrobe.

He rushed across the Room of Life, past the shelves full of cups, at first sight filled with nothing else than water, past the tiny garden, where several plants were chatting, and through the door at the other side, which brought him into the Entrance Hall of the Department. Mulciber slammed the door shut and the room began to rotate. When it stopped, they picked a door and entered a room crammed with desks. Some of the desks were overturned, but no student was there. Lucius couldn't remember this room from the map at all, but he didn't want to ask Mulciber about it. He just walked towards a door, and Mulciber followed silently.

There was a shout somewhere. Lucius identified the distant voice as Dolohov's.

"_We've got him! In a office off_–"

The sound stopped abruptly. For a moment, Lucius didn't move, but when no other sound came, he wrenched open the door in front of which he was standing, and found himself back in the Hall of Prophecy. He ran to the first door in sight and opened it. It was the Death Chamber, and it was empty. While Mulciber ran past him, Lucius slammed the door of the Death Chamber shut and sprinted after him. Mulciber had no luck with the next door, and together they ran to the third door. This one opened to the Brain Room. The first thing Lucius saw was a man in black robes with a much too small head, staggering across the room, bumping into walls and overturning desks and cabinets.

"Rabastan?" Mulciber said softly.

Now Lucius recognised him, too. But Rabastan's head wasn't that of an adult, but that of a baby. Lucius looked around and identified the room as the Time Room. Something must have gone wrong, and Rabastan's head had gone back in time without the rest of his body.

Mulciber was now bending over Crabbe, who had been Stunned. That could have been expected, Crabbe was never the most capable of the fold. Lucius walked further into the room. When he looked inside an small office, he cursed. Two of his Death Eaters were lying on the floor, arms and legs snapped together.

"_Finite Incantatem_. _Finite Incantatem,_" said Lucius, and both of the Full Body Binds were reversed.

"Thanks," said Jugson, scrambling his feet.

Lucius looked at him coldly. "All four of you cursed by those children! The Dark Lord will –"

"_There they are!_"

The unmistakeable voice of Bellatrix echoed through the room.

Lucius turned around at once and sped out of the office. Mulciber was already running to the door leading to the Entrance Hall.

"WE'VE GOT THEM, THEY'RE HERE!" bellowed Avery.

Lucius followed Mulciber into the Entrance Hall, ready to strike, but Potter and his friends weren't there.

"Where are they?" he snarled.

"In there," Avery pointed, "but they've sealed the door. There are other ways in, though."

Lucius looked around. Crabbe, Dolohov and Jugson had just entered the hall. They shut the door behind them, and at once the room started to rotate.

Lucius glared at them. "We need to split up. You three, pick a door and find a way in!"

The room stopped rotating and Crabbe, Dolohov and Jugson opened a door. As soon as it closed behind them, the wall began to move once again. Lucius cursed. They were wasting time.

"We all go in here," he said, while he strode to a random door.

They were lucky. They had entered the Death Chamber, and they could hear the children scrambling in an adjacent room. Bellatrix raced to one of the doors and shouted an unnecessary violent spell to open it. The door burst open and they entered the Brain Room.

"Get Potter!" Bellatrix shrieked. She tried to grab him, but the boy dodged her and sprinted across the room, the prophecy clearly visible in his left hand.

Then the Weasley boy got into his way, and forced Potter to halt.

"Hey!" the boy shouted "Hey, Harry, there are _brains_ in here, ha ha ha, isn't that weird, Harry?"

To Lucius' astonishment, the boy _giggled_.

"Ron, get out of the way, get down –" Harry yelled.

Even Bellatrix had stopped running, and was looking open-mouthed at both boys. Weasley pointed his wand at the tank with brains and Summoned one. The brain flew out of the foul, green liquid, long ribbons unravelling from it, and the boy caught it in his hands.

"Harry, look what's happen– No – no – I don't like it – no, stop – _stop_ –"

"_Diffindo!_" Potter bellowed.

"Harry, it'll suffocate him!" the Weasley girl cried.

Lucius smiled, and then remembered what they were supposed to be doing. While McNair Stunned the Weasley girl, and Mulciber and Avery tried to fight a round-faced boy, but only managed to demolish the room, Lucius knocked Bellatrix to the side and ran towards Potter.

But he was too late. Potter was already racing in the other direction, the prophecy held high above his head. Lucius cursed and swirled around. He knocked Bellatrix to the side again and sped after Potter, who ran through the open door into the Death Chamber. When Lucius entered the chamber, he saw Potter trip and fall off the stone steps. He laughed and gracefully descended the steps himself. To his left, Jugson and Rodolphus Lestrange entered, while to his right Rookwood burst in, and Crabbe and Dolohov came in through a door at the opposite side of the room.

Potter climbed on the dais with the Archway of Death on it, his face etched with fear. Lucius smiled. He pulled off his mask.

"Potter, your race is run," he said, "now hand me the prophecy like a good boy."

"Let – let the others go, and I'll give it to you!" said Potter, panic-stricken.

"You are not in a position to bargain, Potter," smiled Lucius. He was already imagining handing the prophecy over to the Dark Lord. "You see, there are ten of us and only one of you ... or hasn't Dumbledore ever taught you how to count?"

"He's dot alone!" someone yelled from behind.

Lucius whirled around and saw the round-faced boy scrambling down the stone benches. His face was covered with blood, and his nose looked broken.

"Neville – no – go back to Ron –" Potter cried.

"_STUBEFY! STUBEFY! STUBEFY!_" the boy shouted, but nothing happened.

Something clicked in Lucius' mind. This was Neville Longbottom, son of Alice and Frank.

Crabbe seized Longbottom from behind. The boy struggled and kicked to free himself in vain. There were a few things Crabbe excelled in, and holding captives was one of them.

"It's Longbottom, isn't it?" Lucius sneered. "Well, your grandmother is used to losing family members to our cause ... you death will not come as a great shock."

He was rather proud to see that his words made Longbottom's face change colour from red to purple.

"Longbottom?" Bellatrix repeated, and for once, Lucius was glad she was accompanying them. "Why, I have had the pleasure of meeting your parents, boy."

"I DOE YOU HAB!" Longbottom roared. He fought even harder now.

"Someone Stun him!" Crabbe shouted.

"No, no, no," Bellatrix said gleefully. "No, let's see how long Longbottom lasts before he cracks like his parents ... unless Potter wants to give us the prophecy."

"DON'D GIB ID DO DEM! DON'D GIB ID DO DEM, HARRY!"

"_Crucio!_" Bellatrix yelled.

The Longbottom boy screamed and Crabbe dropped him on the floor. Potter was looking aghast.

"That was just a taster!" said Bellatrix when she released the curse after only a few seconds. "Now, Potter, either give us the prophecy, or watch your little friend die the hard way!"

Lucius' heart sprang up in joy when he saw the conclusion being formed in Potter's eyes. Slowly, the boy stretched out his left hand, and Lucius darted forward to snatch the prophecy from him.

Just before he could take it, however, there was a noise behind him and Potter pulled his hand back. Lucius turned around and saw to his horror a group of people bursting into the chamber. He recognised Mad-Eye Moody right away as one of them, and knew they were in trouble.

A flash of red light came flying straight at Lucius. He dodged it and let himself fall down on the floor. Slowly, he crawled around the dais, trying to find a place where he could hide. At the other side of the dais, a tall, black Auror, whom he had seen a few times at the Ministry, was duelling with Avery. Unfortunately, the Auror had spotted Lucius. Lucius jumped to his feet and quickly blocked a curse sent his way by the Auror.

"_Tarantallegra!_" Lucius shouted.

"_Protego!_" the Auror countered, blocking two curses at once.

Lucius managed to jump over his bounced spell, but Avery was hit by the Reductor Curse he had cast himself. He howled in pain and clutched his injured left arm with his right.

"_Stupefy! Expelliarmus!_" the Auror yelled. Both Lucius and Avery dodged, but Avery tripped and fell on the ground.

"_Impedimenta!_" Lucius bellowed.

"_Locomotor Mortis!_" Avery yelled from the floor.

"_Protego_!" the Auror cried once more, and Lucius could only just dodge his bounced curse. It took him a few seconds to get ready again, but no harm was done, as the Auror had been busy with Disarming and Stunning Avery.  
"_Petrificus Totalus!_" Lucius tried, but the Auror deflected the curse with a casual wave of his wand.

"_Stupefy!_" someone shouted from behind. Rookwood darted towards the Auror, and Lucius turned on his heels at once. There was no need for him to continue fighting. He decided to try to find Potter.

Potter was on the stone benches at the opposite side of the room, trying to get Longbottom up the steps. Lucius ran, ducked a jet of light and knocked himself into the pair of boys. They fell, and now Lucius spotted the prophecy. He quickly bent over Potter, ground his wand in the boy's ribs, and growled, "The prophecy, give me the prophecy, Potter!"

Potter struggled. "No – get – off – me ... Neville – catch it!"

Lucius followed the glass ball with his eyes as it rolled across the floor towards the other boy, who caught it safely in his hands. Immediately, Lucius scrambled towards Longbottom, and pointed his wand at him instead. But that was a mistake.

"_Impedimenta!_" cried Potter behind his back, and he was blasted away. He smashed in the stone dais. Bounded by the hex, he couldn't get up, but he could still aim his wand at the prophecy. He was ready to cast a Summoning Charm when suddenly someone jumped between him and Potter. Lucius angrily narrowed his eyes. It was the werewolf, Lupin.

Lucius opened his mouth to strike, as Lupin had his back turned on him, but then Bellatrix suddenly appeared before him, duelling with Sirius Black. When they finally darted out of sight, Lucius could move again. He didn't see the prophecy any more, but he saw the werewolf at the side of the room, and ran in its direction. Someone shouted, and Lucius looked up.

_Dumbledore_.

Dumbledore strode into the room, his wand ready, and Lucius found himself paralysed with terror. The only one the Dark Lord had ever feared was present _here_. Some Death Eaters yelled and Crabbe tried to run for it. Dumbledore waved his wand and Crabbe was pulled back to the middle of the room.

Lucius tried to get to the side of the room unnoticed. He didn't want to give up at the prophecy, but the only thing that seemed to make sense now was making sure to avoid Dumbledore at all costs.

Bellatrix screamed in triumph. Lucius turned his head in time to see the veil hanging from the archway flutter. Sirius Black had vanished. Potter raced down the stone benches, but the werewolf Lupin seized him and held him away from it. That was a pity. The Dark Lord would have liked it if Potter had gone through the archway.

"HE – IS – NOT – DEAD!" Potter roared.

Lucius laughed out aloud. He barely noticed Dumbledore turning around. The spell soared towards him with immense speed and hit him square in the face.


	7. Voldemort

**Planets, Brains and Curses** Chapter Seven: Voldemort

Darkness.

Silence.

There was only one thing that Lord Voldemort enjoyed more than those two: ruling the world. Today, in the quiet, dark room, Voldemort was waiting to obtain the key to that. It would be another twenty minutes. Or maybe an hour. Or maybe somewhat more. But Lord Voldemort didn't care how long exactly it would take. He was very close, and very much enjoying that fact.

The reason for all of this was a small glass ball, lying on a table in front of Voldemort, just outside his reach. It was the only thing in the room that emitted light. Brilliant, shining, red light. The shining glass ball told Lord Voldemort that he was about to achieve the thing he had longed to ever since his return. The ball was a sign. A sign that said that Harry Potter had finally passed the sensors in the Department of Mysteries, carefully placed there by Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters several weeks ago. Harry Potter had finally come to get the prophecy. Finally.

Lord Voldemort smiled. He had been furious when he discovered that he had wasted several months, dwelling on false information. He had been frustrated when Harry Potter hadn't acted after visions of the Department of Mysteries had been planted carefully in his mind. He had been thoroughly annoyed by being constantly surrounded by tumultuous Death Eaters, who had been waiting in vain for the glass ball to shine. But today made him forget all that. Today, he would obtain the prophecy. Today, he smiled.

Nothing could go wrong. Could it? He had had a strange feeling all day, like something was wrong. It was unlike feeling – knowing – that one of his Death Eaters had been lying. But something was wrong.

It couldn't be. Nothing was wrong. It was the perfect plan. Until now, everything had gone smoothly, even more smoothly than he had expected. Potter had arrived at the Department of Mysteries no less than four hours and fifty-five minutes after he had seen the vision. For a boy not able to Apparate, that was extraordinarily fast. Clearly, Harry Potter was ready to risk everything for his dear godfather.

Without doubt, the plan was perfect. Only his morons of Death Eaters would be able to fail it. But of course, Lord Voldemort had foreseen that and taken care of it. Almost certainly unnecessary, he had added Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange to the group that was right now in the Ministry of Magic, securing a very important step to victory. It simply couldn't go wrong. However stupid and incapable his Death Eaters were, twelve of them could achieve almost anything, including getting the prophecy from Harry Potter and his two side-kicks, the Mudblood and the Muggle-lover.

There was no way even Harry Potter could ruin this.

But the unsettling feeling stayed.

Voldemort made a decision. He needed to know what was going on in the Ministry. He needed to be sure that everything was happening according to plan. He needed to check on his Death Eaters and ban that strange feeling from his mind.

There was a perfect way to do it. Ever since Lord Voldemort discovered that Harry Potter was dreaming about Voldemort's most dominant thoughts, he had tried and succeeded to find a way to reverse the connection. He simply had to open his mind and Potter's emotions would be transferred to him. Potter wouldn't notice.

Voldemort proceeded to this and Harry Potter's feelings flooded in.

He sensed terror. Potter was scared, very scared. And there were other feelings. Desperation was one of them. And something very unfamiliar, even more unfamiliar than terror. It had something do to with submissiveness. No, not really. It was friendship. Loyalty. He had endangered his friends and wanted to get them out alive.

Disgusted, Lord Voldemort withdrew himself. Stupid Potter with his foolish feelings. Why would anyone care about their friends? Why would anyone even have friends? Inferiors were much easier to control, and you didn't need to save them from danger, as they were only inferiors.

But he had obtained important information. Potter was scared, even desperate. That could only mean one thing: he was about to hand over the prophecy. His Death Eaters would be back any moment now.

Voldemort leaned back in his chair, a smile on his face. For a few minutes, he just sat there, with closed eyes, enjoying the prospect of the prophecy in his hands, wondering what it would tell him. It would be something very important, that much was certain. Dumbledore – the fool – had protected it day and night. Perhaps it would state how to eliminate Potter.

Although Voldemort had told his Death Eaters Potter had escaped last June by a lucky chance, again, he had begun to wonder whether there was something exceptional about the boy. If there was, it would be in the prophecy, which started with the words he had repeated to himself at least twice a day for thirteen years: _the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches_... As soon as he knew what this unusual power was, he would also know how to kill Potter. And if the prophecy was right, no one else would be able to defeat Lord Voldemort. No one. Lord Voldemort would rule the world.

Voldemort snapped out of his reverie and opened his eyes. The room was just as dark and empty as before. He listened carefully. No Apparating pops. No swishes of cloaks. No triumphant yells. His Death Eaters hadn't returned yet.

He sighed. Why did he have such incapable servants?

He would not go into the Ministry. He could not go into the Ministry. It would be very unwise. His Death Eaters would manage; not all of them were dunderheads after all. Lucius Malfoy was quite useful, actually. Unfortunately, the others were all either dimwitted or had gone insane in Azkaban. Only a few of the ex-prisoners had been ready for today's mission. Dolohov and Rookwood were probably the least insane, but they lacked training. The Lestranges would do fine as long as things did not get complicated: Bella was rather impulsive, and sometimes acted rashly when she would never have done so before Azkaban. But it was all right – retrieving the prophecy was easy enough.

Lord Voldemort tried to relax, but the strange feeling was back again, and a little voice in the back of his mind started nagging him.

_They have failed, why else would they take this long?_

He ignored the voice.

_Try to see the truth, Tom. Your brilliant plan has failed._

Voldemort hated it when the voice called him that. But there was only one way to shut up the voice. He tried to gain access to Potter's emotions again.

There was fear. And he sensed something else. What was it? It grew stronger. It was stress.

That was all fine, it seemed Harry Potter hadn't escaped after all. Then a new emotion hit him, causing a splitting headache. Relief.

What were his Death Eaters playing at? Potter shouldn't be relieved! There was no way Potter could be relieved, if Voldemort's plan was executed as it should.

Just as suddenly as it had come, the relief disappeared, and was replaced by fear and anxiety. That was much better. Voldemort's headache lessened, but it didn't go away. What was happening? The plan had failed, obviously, but there was still hope, because Potter was still frightened.

Harry Potter seemed rather busy with his emotions. He would never notice, would he? If Voldemort would just go and have a better look for a short moment? Before Potter would know something was up, he would be gone again. Yes, that would be best. He could not go to the Ministry himself, he would not go. A disaster would need to happen before he would risk exposure. But he could enter Harry Potter's mind for a minute, maybe. Just to see what was going on, and that everything was all right.

Voldemort cautiously tried to get into Potter's mind. He hadn't tried this before, but he knew it was what Potter had done himself when he was possessing Nagini to attack the Weasley fool.

Quite suddenly, Voldemort could see through Potter's eyes, could hear what Potter heard, and felt everything Potter felt.

There was a boy on the floor ... the boy had red hair ... he was fighting a slimy thing that was strangling him with multicoloured tentacles ... Voldemort wanted the boy to succeed ... but he couldn't do anything to help the boy ...

Then he turned around ... five people in black robes were standing there with their wands raised ... ...they were shooting silver streams out of their wands ... Voldemort ran ... he held something high above his head ... it felt warm in his hand ... the black-robed people ran after him ... he needed to get them away from his friends ...

Voldemort ran through a door ... but the floor stopped ... he was bouncing off the stone benches ... in the middle of the room was an archway on a dais ... he scrambled on the dais ... there were more black-robed people coming into the room through other doors ... one of them advanced on Voldemort ... the man pulled his mask off ...

Voldemort pulled himself back to his chair. He was panting slightly, and a wave of nausea came over him as he tried to move. He grasped the arms of his chair with his long, thin fingers. He forced himself to calm down. Flashes of what he had seen and felt kept coming back to him, but he pushed them away.

It had been a horrible experience. He thought it would be less consuming than possessing someone, but he had been wrong. When he possessed someone, he still could think for himself, he still was there, he only used someone else's body. But this – this made him feel like he was Harry Potter. It was fascinating, but horrible.

But still, it was a very useful way to find out what was happening in the Department of Mysteries. Lord Voldemort didn't want to think about how his idiot Death Eaters had managed to let Potter escape to the Death Room with the prophecy, but the important thing was that finally everything was under control again. Potter stood no chance against ten Death Eaters.

Voldemort shuddered involuntary as he recalled Lucius Malfoy advancing on him – no, on Harry Potter. He supposed it was a good thing that Potter was scared out of his wits, but he couldn't shake off the feeling that it had been him, Lord Voldemort, who had been frightened.

Voldemort desperately sought a good memory to drive this unnerving feeling away. He thought of the moment his Death Eaters had returned from the Azkaban mission, ten of his most faithful servants with them. The freed prisoners were exhausted and weak, but very happy and curious about every tiny detail of their surroundings. They had all thanked Lord Voldemort and agreed to start training and gaining strength right away.

But having back his very best supporters turned out to be an illusion. Some of them hadn't even been able to think straight for weeks, others had lacked the strength to lift their wands, and had even now, after five months, a very weak aim. He already had disposed of three of them.

Voldemort noticed his thought were inevitably turning back to the pathetic behaviour of his Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries tonight. He didn't want to think about that, and he certainly didn't want to note that still no one had returned with the prophecy.

The prophecy. A smile returned to Voldemort's face. In a very short time, he would hold the tiny glass ball, the clue to victory. The thing Albus Dumbledore had protected in vain for many months would be in Voldemort's hands. He would be able to kill Harry Potter, and he planned that to be the moment he would come out in the open. That would be the start of a great war, after which he would finally take over the wizarding world.

No Muggle-loving fools any more. No Albus Dumbledore. No Harry Potter. No Ministry of Magic. Maybe he would let Cornelius Fudge live, as acknowledgement for his highly useful actions over the past year. On the other hand, the fool was responsible for having Lord Voldemort's most faithful servant of all, Barty Crouch Jr., Kissed. Cornelius Fudge would also have to die.

Voldemort was ripped out of his daydreams by a sudden feeling in his stomach, telling him that something was very wrong. This time, it wasn't undefined and unfamiliar. He knew this feeling and he knew not to distrust it. The last time he disregarded it, he had ended up without a body for thirteen years.

Voldemort had no idea what could have caused this feeling. Unfortunately, combined with the fact that his Death Eaters still hadn't returned, it seemed likely that something was wrong with the prophecy. There was only one way to find out. No matter how much he hated the experience, he had to enter Harry Potter's mind again.

Voldemort sat up straight in his chair, grasped the arms tightly and let himself transport over the connection between him and Harry Potter, until he was back in the Death Room of the Department of Mysteries.

He was very angry ... he saw a woman running up stone benches ... he ran after her ... they entered a room with a large tank full of strange white objects ... the woman flung her wand over her shoulder and shouted something ... the tank rose into the air, turned over and crashed to the floor ...

Voldemort was drenched in potion ... the white objects started spinning their tentacles around him ... he shouted, "_Wingardium Leviosa!_" in a strange voice ... the objects flew away from him ... he raced across the room ... he passed a few people looking bewildered ... he opened the door an ran through it ...

He was standing in a circular hallway ... the walls were rotating ... he needed to get out ... he shouted, "Where's the exit? Where's the way out?" and one of the doors opened ...

Voldemort rushed through the corridor to the lifts ... he slammed a button with his rather small fist ... grilles opened ... Voldemort jumped inside the lift ... he slammed his fist on another button ... the lift rose ... the grilles opened again and he dashed outside ...

He was in a very large hall ... there was a fountain with golden figures ... the woman he was chasing was at the other side ... she turned ... a flash of light was coming in his direction ... he ducked behind the fountain ...

Voldemort became aware of dark surroundings. He was sitting on a chair. A full minute passed before he realised that he had slid out of Potter's mind without meaning to. And he knew exactly why: Sirius Black was dead, and Harry Potter's emotions were filled with caring about his godfather. Voldemort was repelled by those feelings so hard he hadn't been able to stay in the boy's mind. But he needed to go back. Things were getting out of hand. He needed the prophecy!

A flash of red light was the first thing he saw ... he ducked behind one of the golden statues to avoid it ... the woman behind the fountain shouted, "Potter, I'm going to give you one chance! Give me the prophecy – roll it towards me now – and I may spare your life!" ... Voldemort couldn't see the woman, but he knew the words were directed at him ... he shouted back, "Well, you're going to have to kill me, because it's gone!"

Voldemort was back at once. Hot waves of fury washed through him. The prophecy was gone, Potter had said. The prophecy was gone!

He needed to get there. He needed to make sure – look into Potter's eyes and see the truth. Maybe he was lying. His Death Eaters had messed it all up. The prophecy was gone.

Lord Voldemort stood up, raised his wand, and Disapparated.

The scene that met his eyes was familiar. Hiding behind the Fountain of Magical Brethren, Harry Potter was standing, wand out. On the other side of the Fountain was Bellatrix Lestrange, who spotted her Lord at once.

"MASTER, I TRIED, I TRIED – DO NOT PUNISH ME –"

"Don't waste you breath!" bellowed Harry Potter, "He can't hear you from here!"

Voldemort took a few steps to get right in front of the boy. "Can't I, Potter?"

Harry Potter froze.

Voldemort pointed his wand at the boy who had ruined all his hopes. He opened his mouth to utter the Killing Curse, but a tiny part of his brain could still think straight, and made him say something different.

"So, you smashed my prophecy?" he said with a surprisingly controlled voice. "No, Bella, he is not lying ... I see the truth looking at me from within his worthless mind ... months of preparation, months of effort ... and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again ..."

He took a few, slow steps forward, with only one goal in his mind. But he was interrupted when Bella flung herself towards him and fell down at his feet.

"Master, I am sorry," she shrieked, "I knew not, I was fighting the Animagus Black! Master, you should know –"

"Be quiet, Bella, I shall deal with you in a moment. Do you think I have entered the Ministry of Magic to hear your snivelling apologies?"

No, Lord Voldemort had entered the Ministry to kill Harry Potter. It was the only thing left he could do. He had to kill Harry Potter.

Bella was still crying, but he focused all his attention on Potter. He would not escape this time.

"I have nothing more to say to you, Potter," Voldemort said in a dangerously quiet voice. "You have irked me too often, for too long. _AVADA KEDAVRA!_"

Time seemed to slow down as Lord Voldemort watched the jet of green light make its way towards Harry Potter, whose arms hung uselessly by his sides, his wand pointing at the floor. Potter had no chance at all. The green light came closer and closer.

Suddenly, one of the golden statues in the Fountain of Brethren sprung alive and jumped between Potter and the curse. The mightiest of all curses bounced off the golden chest, and Harry Potter was still alive.

"What –?" Voldemort shouted enraged. Then he spotted something behind Potter – or rather, someone. A man with a long silver beard, wearing half-moon glasses and looking furious, standing in front of the golden gates at the end of the Atrium.

"_Dumbledore_," Voldemort whispered. At once his anger for losing the prophecy disappeared, and was replaced by fear. He had been very reckless, coming to the Ministry while the prophecy had been lost already, risking exposure – or worse.

He raised his wand. "_Avada Kedavra!_" But long before the green light had reached the gates, Dumbledore had disappeared from sight.

The next moment, the other statues in the Fountain sprung alive. A golden centaur galloped towards Voldemort, who at once Disapparated and reappeared beside the now empty pool. He now could see Dumbledore again, slowly advancing on him, radiating an enormous amount of power.

"It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom," Dumbledore said. "The Aurors are on their way –"

"By which time I shall be gone, and you will be dead!" Voldemort interrupted. He knew he had voiced his hope rather than his expectation, but he ignored that. He might never had a better opportunity to kill Albus Dumbledore before. To demonstrate that, he sent another Killing Curse on his way, but he missed.

Dumbledore cast another spell while the green streak of light hit a desk and set it on fire. Voldemort conjured an advanced shield only just in time.

"You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?" Voldemort shouted over his shield, as the spell Dumbledore had sent had not been a Killing Curse for sure. "Above such brutality, are you?"

"We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom," Dumbledore said. "Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit –"

He was jesting, there was no other possible explanation.

"There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!"

"You are quite wrong," Dumbledore said in his most annoying Professor's voice. "Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness –"

Voldemort wasn't paying attention to Dumbledore any more. He had to kill him, and quickly, before the Aurors arrived. He did not fear the Aurors, but he still hoped he could escape unnoticed by any Ministry workers.

His next Killing Curse only blasted the golden statue of the centaur in pieces, and Dumbledore used the distraction to send a flame the other way. The thin flame wrapped itself tight around Voldemort, who needed all his creativity and a few complicated wand movements to transfigure the flame into a snake. He managed it just in time, and sent the serpent on his way at once. At the same moment, he Apparated to the middle of the empty pool and immediately cast another Killing Curse.

Lord Voldemort smiled as Dumbledore was attacked by both the snake and the curse at the same moment.

"_Look out!_" Harry Potter yelled from behind the statue that was protecting him.

The smile turned into a grin.

Suddenly, Dumbledore's phoenix appeared in the hall and took the blast of the Killing Curse, while at the same time Dumbledore Vanished the serpent and waved his wand at the pool. Voldemort could just see the newly born phoenix on the floor before the water in the pool rose and he couldn't see anything at all. The mass of water tried to suffocate him, and for a moment, Voldemort panicked. Apparating to an arbitrary place in the hall would be a very bad idea with Dumbledore around. But it was either that or give up, or –

Harry Potter was still there. It was his last chance.

Lord Voldemort Apparated just outside the gates, where Dumbledore couldn't see him. He smiled but didn't hesitate. There wasn't much time left.

He left his own body and transferred his mind to Harry Potter's. He pushed the boy's mind away. Harry Potter struggled, but he wasn't nearly strong enough to repel the greatest wizard in the world.

"Kill me now, Dumbledore," Lord Voldemort said through Potter's mouth. He could see Dumbledore standing a couple of feet away, apparently frozen.

"If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy."

Dumbledore came rushing towards Harry Potter when suddenly Voldemort's vision went black. He felt pain like he never had before. It wasn't his body – Harry Potter's body – that hurt, it was his mind. He didn't have a choice. He couldn't endure this.

He left Harry Potter and returned to his own body. The pain ceased immediately.

Voldemort took a few steps towards the hall and surveyed the scene. Bella was lying on the floor very near, trapped by a golden statue. Dumbledore was standing near Potter, but he was looking straight at Voldemort. At the other side of the Atrium, people were entering. Aurors.

Voldemort knew he had lost – for now. He dashed to Bella, grabbed her arm and Disapparated with her, back to his Headquarters.


	8. Sirius

**Planets, Brains and Curses** Chapter Eight: Sirius

When the first call came, Sirius had been chatting with Remus in the kitchen. Remus had answered the call, and Sirius was glad he had. It had been Snape. The ugly Potions Master had called to make sure Sirius was still in Grimmauld Place. He hadn't given any details and had cut the connection as soon as he knew Sirius was indeed at the Headquarters. Of course Sirius was there, as he hadn't been allowed anywhere else than Grimmauld Place for almost a year now.

But now the phone rang again. Dumbledore loved Muggle gadgets, so he had made a couple of Muggle telephones work on magic. Every Order member owned one, to be used when fast communication was needed, since using Floo wasn't safe any more. One of the telephones was at the Headquarters, and five Order members were now staring at it.

"I'll take it," Remus said.

Sirius tried to hear who was talking on the other side of the line, and had just decided it sounded like Snape again, when Remus' face turned as white as a sheet. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out of it. Finally he managed, "How do you know?"

Sirius couldn't move. Something had happened at Hogwarts, and his stomach was churning with anxiety, while his brain seemed to be overloaded, as he could not think of anything but two words.

_Not Harry!_

"We're going to the Ministry at once," Remus said into the receiver. "Harry and a couple of his friends are in danger," he added to the people in the kitchen. "They're in the Department of Mysteries."

_Not Harry!_

Sirius barely noticed Kingsley, Tonks and Mad-Eye saying something, while he got to his feet and drew his wand. He stared at it. What was the last time he had used it for fighting? Probably last summer, almost a year ago, when he had tried and failed to curse Snape into oblivion. Dumbledore had told him to refresh his knowledge of curses, but he hadn't bothered to practice much. It had seemed useless when he was imprisoned in this house. But now –

"Sirius –"

Sirius recognised that tone at once. He didn't need to hear more words our of Remus Lupin's mouth to know exactly what he wanted.

"I'm going," he said angrily, looking up. "You can't stop me. Harry's in danger."

"Someone needs to stay here, Sirius," Remus said, but he sounded like he didn't agree with his own words. "Dumbledore can arrive any moment now. Someone needs to tell him where we've gone."

"I'm going," Sirius repeated. The kitchen seemed strangely distant, hidden behind a huge mental picture of a head with glasses and messy, black hair. A face Sirius knew so well.

"But –"

"Kreacher can do it," said Sirius. "Kreacher will tell Dumbledore. KREACHER!"

"Master called?" The ugly house elf appeared in the kitchen, much too soon. He had obviously been eavesdropping.

"Did you hear everything?" Sirius asked. "When Dumbledore arrives, I want you to tell him exactly what happened and where we've gone. Understood?"

"Yes, Master," Kreacher said. "Kreacher will tell the Muggle-lover about the Potter boy," he muttered. "Now Master finally leaves Kreacher alone with his Mistress."

"Have a nice day, talking to a portrait," Sirius said nastily. He turned to his fellow Order members. "What are we waiting for?"

"You – you're Apparating in the Atrium of the Ministry like this?" Kingsley asked.

"It's the only place you can Apparate to, and this is an emergency," Sirius replied shortly.

"It's empty anyway," Moody growled. "Ministry members don't work in the evenings."

Remus looked very doubtful. He leaned towards Sirius.

"Please take care, Sirius," he whispered.

As soon as Sirius felt his feet make contact with the floor of the Atrium in the Ministry of Magic, he whirled around, spotted the lift at once and ran towards it. He hammered on the button, at the same time impatiently waving to the others. But the lift was so slow that everyone had arrived long before the lift doors opened. When they were all inside and the lift went down again, it seemed to move even slower. After what seemed to be a century, in which Sirius had memorised all of the cracks in the walls of the lift, the grilles finally slid open.

Sirius stepped out and hesitated. He wasn't familiar with this part of the Ministry. But apparently, the others were, as they were already sprinting down the gloomy corridor. Sirius followed. They stopped before a plain, black door. For a moment, no one moved. Then Remus tentatively took a step towards the door, which swung open promtly.

Sirius followed Remus into a circular hallway with a dozen identical doors. When everyone was inside and the door was closed, the wall started to rotate. Sirius realised in horror that besides not being able to find the way out, they didn't have the slightest clue where Harry was.

"What now?" he asked.

"You just have to ask the room where you want to go," Remus said softly.

Sirius wasn't sure he had heard that right. What did Remus mean with asking the room something?

"Where are Harry and the others?" Remus asked to no one in particular.

To Sirius' surprise, two doors opened. One of them closed again before the other opened. Sirius was mystified.

"They're divided," said Moody, walking to the open door. "We'll split up. Shacklebolt, Tonks, come with me." He turned and looked at Sirius and Remus. "You two, take the other door."

The three Aurors disappeared through the door, and at once the room began rotating again. Impatiently, Sirius waited until the room finally ceased moving and then called out: "Where's Harry?"

A door now to his right side swung open. Sirius raised his wand in front of his chest and sprinted to the open door, Remus at his side.

The first thing Sirius registered when he burst into the room was that it was crowded with Death Eaters. The second thing he registered was that Harry was alive, uninjured and backing away to safety now he had seen the Order members come in.

A few feet to Sirius' left, another door had opened and Tonks, Kingsley and Moody sprinted in. Sirius barely spared them a glance and swung into action. He sent a shower of sparks towards a Death Eater in the middle of the room. For a moment, the man was confused, which allowed Sirius to jump off the benches and get very close to him. Sirius dodged a jet of green light that came from his left, pointed his wand straight at the Death Eater and waited patiently until the sparks had died out.

Dark eyes flashed angrily through the slit in the mask when the man spotted Sirius' wand tip.

Sirius grinned. "_Petrificus Totalus!_"

But in the time that it took Sirius to pronounce those words, the man was able to duck and slip away under his arms. Sirius turned just in time to block an Imperius Curse.

"_Stupefy!_" he shouted. The man's chest was hardly a feet apart from his wand tip, and Sirius watched the Death Eater fall to the floor with satisfaction.

"SIRIUS, LOOK OUT!" a familiar voice bellowed.

"_Protego!_" Sirius yelled on instincts he didn't know he still had. In the corner of his eye, he saw a Death Eater advancing on him. But the man now had to block his own curse that came back to him, and Sirius used the time to give Remus the thumbs-up to thank him for his warning. His friend was duelling fiercely with a heavily bleeding Death Eater. Sirius turned his attention back to his new opponent, who had just sent a Killing Curse his way. Sirius threw himself to the floor and rolled over, coming up in a crouch a few feet away.

"_Locomotor Mortis!_" he yelled. He saw his favourite curse hit the black-robed man, who fell over immediately. Knowing that the Death Eater would have performed the counter-curse in a few seconds, Sirius tried to get to his feet, but knocked his heels into something hard. He risked a glance backwards and saw a dais, bearing an ancient-looking archway, which he hadn't even noticed when he came running into this room. A veil fluttered in the archway. The sight sent a shiver down Sirius' spine. He decided to stay clear from the archway whenever that was possible.

"_Crucio!_" The Death Eater apparently had got rid of the Leg-Locker Curse and was now casting a not so nice curse. Sirius easily blocked it.

"_Petrificus Totalus! Stupefy! Expelliarmus!_" he yelled happily.

His opponent was not easily confused. "_Protego! Imperio! Stupefy!_"

Sirius darted around, dodging curses and thoroughly enjoying the duel. The spells he cast on the Death Eater became steadily more obscure.

"_Avis!_" he bellowed, but the man wasn't distracted at all by the fluttering birds. "Oh, all right. _Furnunculus!_"

The Death Eater dodged. "_Impedimenta!_"

"_Protego!_ _Somnius!_"

A white flash of light hit the man, whose eyelids began to droop immediately. Sirius knew the Sleeping Spell wouldn't have effect long in this racket, so he cast a Disarming Spell as well. He watched the Death Eater slowly wake up to discover he was in the middle of a battle but didn't have a wand any more, and then Stunned him.

Having got rid of his direct opponents, Sirius turned around to look for Harry. After a few seconds, he spotted him. Harry was lying on the floor, next to a boy of his age, whose legs were jerking uncontrollably, while a Death Eater was pointing his wand to him. Sirius didn't waste any more time – he raced towards the three people and bodily knocked into the Death Eater.

Now he was near the two boys, Sirius saw that Harry's friend strongly resembled Alice Longbottom. So this was Neville. Sirius would have liked to introduce himself properly, but the Death Eater, whom he recognised as Antonin Dolohov, was already back on his feet.

And a new duel started. Dolohov was very quick, and Sirius felt he had to use all his abilities to fight him off. Curses flew to and fro. He didn't even have time to think of some clever curse that he might defeat the Death Eater with.

Then Dolohov grinned dangerously and started to make some strange movement with his wand. Sirius stood transfixed. He didn't know what his opponent was doing, and therefore he didn't know how to block it either; nor was it clear in which direction the curse would go, so dodging was also impossible.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" someone bellowed. While Dolohov fell backwards to the ground, Sirius flashed Harry a smile. His godson had acted in exactly the right moment.

"Nice one!" he shouted.

Two jets of red light made their way towards Harry, and Sirius quickly pushed the boy's head out of harm's way. "Now I want you to get out of –"

He had to duck again, forcing Harry with him, because green light was hurtling towards them. Someone shrieked triumphantly and Sirius snapped his head around just in time to see his Bellatrix Lestrange run away from the limp body of Tonks. Anger blazed up in him.

"Harry, take the prophecy, grab Neville and run!" he bellowed.

He turned around and faced Bellatrix. "_Impedimenta!_"

"_Crucio!_" Bellatrix shrieked.

Sirius dodged. "_Furnunculus! Expelliarmus! Protego!_"

Bellatrix was steadily sending curses his way, most of them coloured green. Sirius dodged most of them and occasionally blocked the ones that were not Unforgivable. He himself used a wide range of spells, trying to catch her off guard. It didn't work, but Sirius was having fun anyway. With each spell, he felt more alive, energy surging through his body and his wand hand prickling with magic. After a year locked up in Grimmauld Place, where bad memories were lurking in every corner, it was marvellous to be able to fight Bellatrix. She was not as fast as Dolohov, but she was at least as hard to hit. Sirius had enough time to think of creative ways to try to defeat his cousin, and even found time to taunt her.

"Gone soft in Azkaban?" he yelled when she didn't use an Unforgivable five times in a row.

"_Crucio! Avada Kedavra! Crucio!_" Bellatrix shrieked in reply.

Sirius darted around to avoid being hit with one of the Unforgivables, and came to a standstill right before the old archway. "_Expelliarmus!_" he tried. But he missed.

"_Stupefy!_" Bellatrix shouted.

Sirius easily dodged the jet of light. "Come on, you can do better than that!"

He hadn't paid any attention to his surroundings during his duel with Bellatrix, but now he noticed that the room had gone quiet. His voice and his laughter echoed strangely against the walls.

The next thing he saw was a flash of light hurtling towards him. He couldn't get away from it; it hit him in the chest. He was knocked off his feet. He felt his feet leave the ground and his body fly through the air, to where he knew the archway awaited.

His surprise that Bellatrix had managed to hit him was replaced by fear for what was going to happen. Before his body touched the veil, he saw Harry watch him with big, fearful eyes. He wanted to smile at him, but he found he couldn't. Movement caught his eye, and he saw Dumbledore turn around and raise his wand – too late.

Sirius fell through the archway.


	9. Remus

**Planets, Brains and Curses** Chapter Nine: Remus

Ever since the shrill ring had disturbed the kitchen of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Remus had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Before Severus had called, using the only-for-emergencies Muggle phones Dumbledore had installed, Sirius had been in a good mood – which didn't happen often nowadays – but a call from his old arch-enemy, to ask whether Sirius was still at the Headquarters at that, was definitely one of the quickest ways to get Sirius moody.

The arrival of Tonks, Alastor and Kingsley hadn't made things better either. They all took Severus' call seriously and, after having interrogated Remus thoroughly about the approximately twelve words Severus had spoken, were waiting anxiously for a further explanation. Remus wished nothing more than that Dumbledore arrived, but instead the phone rang again.

Remus answered.

"Severus here again," an urgent voice said. "Harry Potter and his friends have gone to the Department of Mysteries. They're probably walking right into a trap of the Dark Lord's making."

Remus felt himself grow very cold, and it took a while before he could speak again.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"Potter saw a vision about Black being captured, that's why I checked on Black before. And now he's disappeared, and a couple of other students are gone too."

"Who?"

"Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, of course," Snape said, "but also Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom."

Six students. Remus knew them all, and his chest constricted at the thought of them being in a trap of Voldemort's. One thing was beyond any doubt: they needed to be rescued.

"We're going to the Ministry at once," he said, looking around at the other people in the kitchen. Sirius seemed frozen to the spot; the others looked curious.

"Harry and a couple of his friends are in danger," Remus said to them. "They're in the Department of Mysteries."

"We're coming," Tonks and Kingsley said at the same time.

"Yeah, me too," growled Alastor Moody.

Sirius got to his feet with his wand in hand, looking at it as if he didn't know what to do with it.

"Black can't go." Severus' voice sounded from the telephone. "He needs to tell Dumbledore, when he arrives. Good luck," he added.

There was a click as Severus cut off the connection. Remus walked slowly towards Sirius, who was still staring intently at his wand, his eyes slightly unfocused.

"Sirius –" he began, but he didn't know what to say. _Severus doesn't want you to go._ That would most certainly not be the right approach.

Sirius looked up, fury blazing in his eyes. "I'm going. You can't stop me. Harry's in danger."

And Remus knew he couldn't stop his friend. But he had to try. "Someone needs to stay here, Sirius. Dumbledore will arrive any moment now. Someone needs to tell him where we've gone."

"I'm going," Sirius stated.

"But –"

"Kreacher can do it," interrupted Sirius. "Kreacher will tell Dumbledore. KREACHER!"

There were scuttling footsteps and then the house elf appeared in the kitchen.

"Did you hear everything?" Sirius asked. "When Dumbledore arrives, I want you to tell him exactly what happened and where we've gone. Understood?"

"Yes, Master," Kreacher said, and he added under his breath, "Kreacher will tell the Muggle-lover about the Potter boy. Now Master finally leaves Kreacher alone with his Mistress."

"Have a nice day, talking to a portrait," Sirius said, sneering. "What are we waiting for?" he added.

"You – you're Apparating in the Atrium of the Ministry like this?" Kingsley asked.

"It's the only place you can Apparate to, and this is an emergency," Sirius replied shortly.

"It's empty anyway," Moody added. "Ministry members don't work in the evenings."

Remus suddenly had a vision of Sirius Apparating into the Ministry in front of a couple of Aurors, and being captured and led away to Azkaban immediately.

"Please take care, Sirius," he whispered in his friend's ear.

Indeed, when they Apparated in the Atrium, no one was there. Sirius was hammering the lift buttons before Remus had made sure no part of his body was left in Grimmauld Place. He had always hated Apparating, and getting himself splinched was one of his greatest fears.

They rushed into the lift, which didn't seem to mind the frantic urging on by Sirius at all. Its slow descend seemed to represent Remus' helpless feeling. Harry and the others could already be in the hands of the Death Eaters. They could already be dead.

The grilles slid open, and they raced through the familiar corridor to the place where they all had spent so many hours, waiting for the moment Voldemort would strike. They skidded to a halt just before the door giving entrance to the Department of Mysteries.

Remus stepped forward and felt his insides sink when the door swung open of his own accord. That could only mean one thing: the Death Eaters had managed to break through the security spells and got inside. It wasn't a dream, a mistake, a misinterpretation. It was real.

Remus entered. He found himself in a circular room, lit by many blue-flamed candles. The others came in after him. Nobody spoke. Tonks closed the door, and at once the wall started to rotate. Everything seemed to turn blue for a moment, then the wall stopped. Remus blinked and made out twelve identical doors.

"What now?" Sirius asked, sounding slightly panicked.

Remus remembered Dumbledore telling him about the Department of Mysteries.

"You just have to ask the room where you want to go," he said.

Sirius looked at him blankly.

Remus took a deep breath, hoping very hard that the room would not reply, and asked loudly, "Where are Harry and the others?"

Halfway through his question, a door opened, but it closed right away and another door opened instead.

"They're divided," Alastor Moody said. "We'll split up. Shacklebolt, Tonks, come with me. You two," he gestured to Sirius and Remus, "take the other door."

As soon as Alastor, Tonks and Kingsley had closed the door behind them, the walls started rotating once more. They had barely stopped again when Sirius yelled, "Where's Harry?"

A door to their right opened. Remus felt sick, but they didn't waste any time and sprinted into the room, wands raised.

The room they entered was large. Stone benches descended to a deep pit, in the centre of which a ancient archway was standing on a dais. A black veil hung down the archway. Remus' instincts immediately told him that thing was dangerous, and the next moment he remembered why. Dumbledore had told him all he knew about the Department of Mysteries, and this room was without doubt the Death Chamber.

_How appropriate._

About ten Death Eaters were surrounding Harry, who was holding the prophecy. Neville was lying on the floor, shaking and sobbing. To Remus' left, another door opened to let in the other members of the Order. Sirius was already jumping down the stone benches and Tonks was sending colourful jets of light over his head at the Death Eaters. Kingsley was running along the wall to attack from the opposite side of the room. Remus followed Sirius downwards, with Alastor at his side, sending a continued stream of curses towards the confused Death Eaters.

Remus felt his heart beat very fast. As he jumped down the benches, he kept repeating to himself that they were prepared. They had been practising for a year. They could fight Death Eaters and win. But no one had anticipated landing in a huge battle. They were outnumbered two to one, and on top of that, they had to protect the students. At least two of whom were alive.

Something green flashed in the corner of Remus' eye. He threw himself to the side and heard the Killing Curse hit the wall with a loud bang. When he had regained his balance, he found himself only a couple of feet from a heavily bleeding Death Eater, who looked ready to curse again. The battle had begun.

"_Stupefy!_" Remus yelled, but his opponent was not as disabled by his injuries as Remus had hoped, and avoided the curse with ease.

"_Impedimenta!_"

"_Protego!_"

The Death Eater, whose mask was soaked with blood, jumped up two benches to avoid the bounced curse. Remus suddenly found himself beneath his attacker, which was not the way he liked it.

A silver stream of light was now making its way towards him, and as he darted to the side, he aimed a Reductor Curse on the bench the Death Eater was standing on. It worked perfectly well; the man lost his balance and fell down a few steps. Unfortunately, Remus' Disarming Spell missed by inches.

He risked a glance downwards, to the pit of the room, and at once alarm bells went off in his head. Sirius was standing over a Stunned Death Eater, but he hadn't seen that another one was advancing on his back.

"SIRIUS, LOOK OUT!" he bellowed.

His friend reacted immediately and cast a Shield Charm while turning around. Relief flooded Remus when he saw the curse bounce off the shield, but he didn't have time to relax. His opponent had scrambled back to his feet and Remus narrowly avoided another Killing Curse. He quickly sent a Confundus Charm immediately followed by a Disarming Spell to the Death Eater, buying himself a bit of time. He spotted Sirius giving the thumbs-up in the corner of his eye.

After that, he didn't have the time to concentrate on anything but his duel. He counted himself lucky that the Death Eater was injured; he felt he would never have been able to hold him off otherwise.

Remus started to feel more and more exhausted as the duel carried on. His opponent was better, even injured; his only hope was that blood loss would take its toll on the Death Eater before fatigue would overcome him.

But it did not. Remus felt his legs and arms grow heavier with time, and finally he couldn't manage to dodge any more and was hit by the Cruciatus Curse.

Then his opponent made a miscalculation. The one big advantage of being a werewolf was being used to pain. While the Death Eater allowed himself to relax, Remus managed to ignore the pain long enough to aim his wand.

"_Stupefy!_"

The pain disappeared. Remus shakily got to his feet and ripped the mask of his opponent's face. It was not a nice sight. All over the face of Rodolphus Lestrange, tiny glass-like splinters had ripped the skin open. Blood was still flowing freely from the wounds. It looked like a glass ball had exploded right in front of his face.

Remus turned away from the unconscious Lestrange and looked around the room. It now truly resembled a battlefield. Many of the Death Eaters were lying motionless on the floor, but Alastor and Tonks were also felled. However, most importantly, Harry was still there, still holding the prophecy and now fighting with Lucius Malfoy.

Remus forgot his heavy legs and sprinted across the room. Harry performed a perfect Impediment Hex over his shoulder and Malfoy was blasted off his back. Remus jumped in front of Harry.  
"Harry, round up the others and GO!"

He didn't wait to see if Harry obeyed, because he has spotted a lonely Death Eater in a corner, who was looking around dazedly and send a curse through the room every now and then. That could be even more dangerous than a direct opponent, as was proved by a jet of green light that had almost hit Remus. Sirius and Kingsley were still duelling two remaining Death Eaters, so Remus crossed the room as fast as he could, wand at the ready. He felt very vulnerable, running in the middle of the room, but luckily the Death Eater didn't even notice him until he was ten feet away.

"_Stupefy!_" the Death Eater shouted.

"_Protego! Expelliarmus!_" Remus countered.

His opponent fell over trying to avoid the bounced Stunner, and managed to dodge the Disarming Spell as well.

"_Crucio!_" he yelled, now sitting on the lowest stone step.

Remus ducked. Better not to try that twice. "_Impedimenta!_"

"_Protego!_"

Remus jumped aside and tried a Stunning Spell at the same time as his attacker cast an Imperius Curse. The jets of light hit each other in mid-air and both went astray.

Suddenly, the Death Eater's eyes grew wide, and Remus couldn't help himself. He glanced over his shoulder.

Rushing off the stone steps was Albus Dumbledore, power radiating from every particle of his being.

Remus felt new energy flowing through his veins, but when he turned back to finish his opponent off, the Death Eater was climbing as fast as he could, trying to get away from Dumbledore. But the latter had seen him and waved his wand. Remus felt a hot wave of power pass him, and the escaping Death Eater was held back and thrown backwards in the air. With a crash, he fell on the floor, unconscious.

Remus flinched at the sight, but he reminded himself that the man had almost killed him and looked around. Sirius was duelling with his cousin Bellatrix Lestrange on the dais with the archway. Remus smiled wryly. Sirius would be glad to get revenge on his most hated cousin.

Then Remus spotted Lucius Malfoy inobtrusively walking up the stone benches behind Dumbledore's back. He was clearly trying to sneak out now the Death Eater's defeat was certain. Remus took one step towards Malfoy, and then stopped dead as he heard a scream of triumph, coming from the dais. He turned around. Bellatrix was standing on the dais, next to the archway. And Sirius wasn't there.

It took about half a second for Remus' brain to process that fact. Sirius wasn't there. That could only mean that he fell through the archway. Through the Archway of Death.

Remus wanted to shout, to cry, but his instincts kicked in when he saw Harry running to the archway. He wouldn't lose two of the most important people in his life in one night, if he could help it. He sprinted forwards and seized Harry with both arms around the chest.

"There's nothing you can do, Harry –" he started with a surprisingly calm voice.

Harry kicked and yelled, "Get him, save him, he's only just gone through!"

"– it's too late, Harry."

"We can still reach him –" Harry protested, struggling hard to loosen himself from Remus' grasp.

"There's nothing you can do, Harry ... nothing ... he's gone."

Remus almost broke down at his own words, but Harry was still trying get to the archway. He had to be strong.

"He hasn't gone!" the boy bellowed. "SIRIUS! SIRIUS!"

"He can't come back, Harry," Remus said, his voice finally breaking. "He can't come back, because he's d–"

"HE – IS – NOT – DEAD! SIRIUS!"

Remus started dragging Harry away from the archway, and that seemed to help. Harry finally stopped struggling, and Remus kept holding him with only one hand.

"Harry?" Neville slid down the stone benches to where Harry stood. His face was covered with blood, and his nose seemed to be broken. "Harry, I'b really sorry ... Was dad man – was Sirius Black a – a friend of yours?"

Remus tried to concentrate on anything but what Neville was saying, and saw that the boy's legs were twitching uncontrollably.

"Here," he said, pointing his wand at Neville's legs. "_Finite._"

He looked at the archway. Sirius was there ... No, he wasn't. Sirius was gone. He couldn't stay and look at that fluttering veil forever, it wouldn't bring Sirius back. And there were more urgent matters now.

"Let's – let's find the others," he said in a strained voice, slowly turning away from the archway. "Where are they all, Neville?"

"Dey're all back dere," Neville said. "A brain addacked Ron bud I dink he's all righd – and Herbione's unconscious, bud we could feel a bulse –"

A loud bang interrupted him, and Remus heard Kingsley yelling in pain. He looked over his shoulder and saw Bellatrix – _she killed him_ – run away. She deflected a spell from Dumbledore, and then Remus felt Harry pull his arm away. His hand grasped empty air.

"Harry – no!" he yelled.

"SHE KILLED SIRIUS! SHE KILLED HIM – I'LL KILL HER!"

Remus could only look. By the time he started to think of using his wand, Harry and Bellatrix were gone.

"Remus." Albus Dumbledore's voice was very quiet, but Remus still picked it up. He turned – _don't look at the archway_ – and walked to the Order's head.

"Remus – I need to go after Harry. Do you know where the other students are?"

Remus opened his mouth to speak, and then realised he couldn't remember what Neville had told him. He closed his mouth and tried hard to remember.

"Remus?"

"They're – Neville pointed to that door, on the far side, in the middle of the wall."

"Ah, the Brain Room," Albus said.

Suddenly Remus remembered. "Yes, the Brain Room, Neville said Ron was attacked by a brain."

Albus frowned. "That's not good, I'll need to check up on him," he muttered. "Remus, could you do something else for me?"

_Anything but going home without Sirius_.

"Of course," he said, but it didn't sound right.

Albus cast a worried look over him, and said, "I need you to check all the rooms on Death Eaters. There might be a few heavily injured ones left behind by their fellows. Stun and bind them, and bring them out of the Department. You know you can just ask the hallway where to go, don't you?"

Remus nodded, turned and walked to the door he had come through about an hour ago – _with Sirius_. He entered the hallway, trying very hard not to think of Sirius. But it was no use. The image of a fluttering, black veil was floating in his mind.

_I didn't even see him die._

Remus forced himself to concentrate on his task. He looked at the now stationary walls.

"Show me a room," he said, "where a Death Eater is, and which is not the Death Chamber."

A door flew open, and Remus entered a huge room with many rows of shelves carrying thousands of tiny glass balls. So this was the Hall of Prophecy. It was huge. He never knew there had been made so many prophecies. He looked around in awe for a moment, and then set off to look for the Death Eater who was supposed to be here. He lit his wand tip and shone into every row while he walked slowly past. Finally, in row ninety-seven, he saw a man lying on the floor, quite still. But Remus didn't take any chances. _No more killing tonight._

"_Expelliarmus!_"

The Death Eater was moved a few feet by the blast of the curse and moaned, while Remus caught the wand and tucked it away in his robes. When he got closer to the man, he saw he was lying in a pool of blood. There were fragments of glass everywhere in his head. His robes were ripped in several places and showed more wounds.

It was obvious where the glass came from. A couple of yards away, the floor of the Hall was scattered with fragments of glass, as well as several parts of shelves. At least a hundred prophecies had been smashed in the battle that had taken place here.

_The Ministry is not going to like this._

Remus tried not to picture what had happened in this row, because he really didn't want to know – the rest was bad enough.

_Sirius._

He bound the arms and legs of the Death Eater and conjured a stretcher. With the heavily injured man floating in front of him, he walked all the way back to the door he had entered to, next to row one. He passed many other doors, but he was wise enough not to try them. They would only bring him in other rooms of the Department that might contain unpleasant surprises.

He found the next injured Death Eater in the Time Room, although _injured_ was not the best word. In the middle of dozens of very common clocks and odd-shaped hourglasses, most of which were in pieces on the ground, a man with a much too small head was walking drunkenly around, slamming his arms into the walls and the various cabinets. He clearly didn't have a clue what he was doing, and it took a full minute for Remus to register that the head was actually a baby's head.

He wondered what kind of horrible thing had made the Death Eater this way, and if there would be any chance of restoring the head. He tried to get the man out of the room into the hallway, where it would be much safer to Stun him, but it was impossible. Finally Remus gave up, stood in the doorway and aimed.

"_Stupefy!_"

He closed his eyes when the Death Eater with baby-head crashed into one of the few cabinets that had still been intact. But nothing strange happened, and Remus put the man on a stretcher and floated him in the hallway, where the injured Death Eater was waiting.

But what to do now? Before he could decide, a door burst open and a pair of Aurors ran in. Remus stood transfixed. There was no way he could explain why he was in the Department of Mysteries of all places in the middle of the night. But he didn't need to explain.

"These, Death Eaters?" one of them asked.

Remus just gaped.

"Yeah," the other Auror confirmed. "But I think there should be more."

"There – there are," managed Remus. "I think there are about ten in the D– there."

The hallway had already opened one of the doors wide at Remus' words, and the Aurors went through it. Remus was left with his two stretchers. He was very confused. Was it possible Dumbledore had alerted the Aurors? Why would they believe him? Something was not right, but at least Remus wasn't thrown into Azkaban for trespassing, like poor Sturgis.

Now the Aurors were there to take care of the Death Eaters, there was nothing more to do for Remus. But he didn't want to go back to Headquarters. He didn't want to be the one to report what had happened. But he didn't want to be alone either. He couldn't decide what to do, so he started walking, very slowly, in the direction of the lifts.


	10. Dumbledore

Chapter Ten: Albus Dumbledore

Albus Dumbledore walked at a slow pace through Diagon Alley, smiling happily at everyone around him. Of course, they did not smile back, as they did not see him; he was invisible. It was one of the disadvantages of being wanted by the Ministry. He wasn't afraid of being thrown in Azkaban – it wouldn't be a problem to escape from an Auror, in the slight possibility he would meet one – but being sighted by people would alert the Ministry to the fact he was still walking around and working against them – and Voldemort. No, the Ministry was much better off believing that Albus Dumbledore was hiding from them.

He entered The Leaky Cauldron and exited to the Muggle side of London. Checking his watch, he quickened his pace. He could have Apparated to Grimmauld Place, and spent more time in Diagon Alley, but it was useless. There was no way he was able to enter the various sweets shops while being invisible, as they were always crowded with children, and having a look at other shops in Diagon Alley always resulted in buying shiny, useful little tools, only to discover back in his office that he already had two of them and had never used them. Albus smiled on remembering the state of chaos he had left his office in – all the useless tools were broken. Unfortunately, all of it would be magically repaired when he returned.

People often wondered why Albus Dumbledore never Apparated. It was by far the easiest way to reach your destination, they said, but those people usually were not called Albus Dumbledore. Albus did not especially like walking, and flying on the back of a Thestral was not nearly as comfortable as Apparating (although it was certainly more comfortable than Flooing), but he liked travelling.

Whenever he travelled, he was alone, away from any obligations he might have, and quite inaccessible. And that was something Albus Dumbledore valued very much. Most people didn't get dozens of owls a day, as well as several Floo calls. Even at night he wasn't free from owls, or a hot-headed caretaker who had found a student out of bed. But when he was travelling, almost no owl could reach him, and other people could certainly not find him; after all, no sane wizard ever considered that one could travel longer than a few seconds.

There were disadvantages to being inaccessible, though, and Albus Dumbledore was about to discover one of them when he stepped over the threshold of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Alarm bells went off in his head at once. The kitchen door was wide open, and, moreover, the house felt empty.

Barely noticing that his visibility returned as a consequence of lack of concentration, Albus took a few large strides to get into the kitchen. It was empty, although there were supposed to be at least three members of the Order present. There was a slight chance that Sirius was somewhere upstairs waiting for him, but Albus didn't really believe that. Sirius was gone.

Albus knew he had been locking up Sirius for far too long, and he still had not done anything about it. And now it was too late.

_Kreacher._ At once, Albus was moving again. The house-elf would know where Sirius and the others went, and there was no way he could leave the house. Most likely he would not be happy to tell Albus anything useful, but Albus would force it out of him if he had to.

He discovered the house-elf in the drawing room, where he was drooling over the tapestry on the wall.

"Kreacher."

The house-elf turned, spotted Dumbledore and started muttering at once. "Ah, the Muggle-loving fool has arrived. Blood traitor, he is." His voice grew louder. "But now Kreacher can tell him about the Potter boy. Then he will leave, and no one will ever return! Kreacher will be alone with his Mistress!" The house-elf was almost shouting now, and he seemed to realise that, as he suddenly snapped his mouth shut and looked up at Dumbledore. Then he started speaking again, in a gleeful voice, and Albus' worst fears were confirmed.

"Master Dumbledore, Master Sirius ordered Kreacher to tell where he has gone. Because the Potter boy is in the Ministry, with his traitorous little friends. Master Sirius and the other scum went after him, and they will never return. Kreacher – Kreacher will be –"

The old house-elf couldn't go on, he was laughing too much.

For a moment, Albus was frozen in fear and anger. Not just Sirius, but Harry as well had left his safe place, and the pieces were slowly falling together in Albus' mind, forming a very clear conclusion: things were about to go very wrong.

Albus knelt down on the floor and grabbed Kreacher at his small shoulders. "Kreacher, why do you think they'll never return? Who else is in the Department of Mysteries?"

"Kreacher – doesn't – know," the house-elf gasped between his fits of laughter.

"You can't fool me, Kreacher," Albus said harshly. "Tell me!"

"Kreacher – won't – Kreacher won't tell!"

Albus decided it was time to end the niceties. He needed to get to the Ministry, but first he needed to know every bit of information the house-elf could tell him. He drew his wand.

Kreacher stopped laughing at once. His eyes were full of fear. There was no much house-elves feared more than a wizard's wand.

"Are you or are you not going to tell me?" Albus asked.

"All – all right, Kreacher will tell Master Dumbledore," Kreacher said in a hasty, quiet voice. "The followers of He Who Must Not Be Named are in the Ministry. They need the Potter boy there. And they will kill him! Without Harry Potter, He Who Must Not Be Named will take over the world. They've promised Kreacher!"  
"Who promised you that?" Albus asked quickly.

The elf blinked its huge eyes, then looked away, clenching its little fists. "Kreacher won't say it."

"_Imperio._"

The curse didn't work as well on elves as on wizards, but it was enough. Kreacher told Albus everything. How he had escaped the house around Christmas, and had gone to another Black family member, Narcissa Malfoy. How he had told the Malfoys about Harry being the one Sirius cared most for. How that finally had resulted in a master plan. How Kreacher had injured Buckbeak the Hippogriff, so Sirius had been tending to him while Harry checked in. How finally Sirius, Alastor Moody, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt had left for the Ministry to rescue Harry and his friends.

Disgusted, Albus Stunned the elf.

He quickly made his way out of the house, turned himself invisible and Apparated right into the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic. He took a split second to notice no one was there before rushing to the lift. A thousand thoughts were spinning in his head while the lift descended to Level Nine. The Occlumency lessons had not paid off. Voldemort had fed Harry a vision about Sirius, clearly with the goal to obtain the prophecy. Would Harry be able to hold the Death Eaters off? But he didn't know about the prophecy, or the importance of it! Albus cursed himself for not telling Harry about that before. If someone died – if Harry died –

"Department of Mysteries," the voice in the lift announced, and the doors opened. Albus raced to the black door at the end of the corridor, unconsciously undoing his invisibility. The door opened without protests, and that was a bad sign.

"Bring me to Harry Potter," he said urgently.

Promptly, a door opened, and Albus rushed through it.

He entered the Death Chamber and registered everything that was happening at once. At the foot of the steps, Harry and Neville were sitting, both alive. He could only see Harry's back, but Neville was staring up to Albus, despite his broken nose and his cursed legs. In a far corner, Remus was duelling with a Death Eater. On the dais, Sirius and his cousin Bellatrix Lestrange were battling fiercely. Lucius Malfoy was running through the room, and Kingsley had just taken out another Death Eater Albus recognised as Algernon Rookwood. Half a dozen other Death Eaters were lying on the ground, although some of them were waking up again and looking around groggily. Nymphadora was also unconscious, not looking very well. Alastor was just sitting up at the opposite side of the room.

Albus saw all this in a fleeting moment, and the next moment he was descending the stone steps. When he passed Harry and Neville, the waking Death Eaters in the front of the room discovered him, and cried out warnings to their fellows. The Death Eater battling with Remus tried to escape, but Albus pulled him back with a wave of his wand. He drew an invisible square in the middle of the room, and started to put the Death Eaters one by one within the boundaries.

"Come on, you can do better than that!"

Sirius' laughter echoed around the room. Albus turned towards the dais, mentally cursing himself for not taking out Bellatrix Lestrange first. She was much too dangerous.

Lestrange had her wand pointed at Sirius' chest. Sirius was hit with a curse. His eyes widened, his smile disappeared. He was blown off his feet. He was flying in the air, free, like he hadn't been in years. Thoughts exploded in Albus' mind as he anticipated what would happen. He felt himself stiffen up, guilt flooding his veins, as he watched Sirius' body make contact with the Veil of Death, push it out of the way, and fall through the archway. He was gone.

Bellatrix screamed in triumph, Harry screamed in agony. Remus was the first to react, and grabbed Harry tight, to prevent the boy from following Sirius through the archway.

Albus turned away, blocking any thoughts about what had happened. He waved his wand and threw the next Death Eater into the square a bit too roughly. The man smashed into one of his fellows, who fell against the invisible wall and howled in pain.

"HE – IS – NOT – DEAD!" Harry bellowed. "SIRIUS!"

Albus felt pain in his chest upon hearing the boy shouting. Someone behind him laughed. He turned around and fiercely Stunned Lucius Malfoy.

Bellatrix was now duelling with Kingsley behind the dais. Albus first trapped the last two Death Eaters in the middle of the room and then turned around to fight her. But he was too late – again. Kingsley shouted in pain and crashed hard in the ground. Bellatrix ran past the dais on the other side. Albus aimed a spell at her, but she deflected it. She ran up the steps and he tried another spell, but missed again. Then a small figure with jet-black hair started to run after her.

"SHE KILLED SIRIUS!" Harry roared. "SHE KILLED HIM – I'LL KILL HER!"

Albus stared in shock while Harry chased Bellatrix out of the room.

He needed to act fast. Bellatrix would no doubt run straight to the Atrium, where she would be able to Disapparate if needed. But she would also try to harm Harry, or to retrieve the prophecy. Where was the prophecy? Albus hadn't seen it. He needed to get to Harry, whose anger wouldn't do much good. But he still had some time, and he still needed some time. The group of Death Eaters needed looking after, there were other students somewhere in the building, probably injured, and the members of the Order hadn't come out of the fight unscratched, either.

"Remus," Albus called quietly.

The young man turned and walked towards Albus, his eyes downcast. Albus realised that Remus now had to digest another loss, but this was no time to mourn. There were still other lives at stake.

"Remus – I need to go after Harry," Albus said. "Do you know where the other students are?"

Remus opened his mouth, but did not seem capable of speech, and closed his mouth again.

"Remus?" Albus asked carefully.

"They're – Neville pointed to that door, on the far side, in the middle of the wall."

Albus located the door. He recalled the map of the Department in his mind. "Ah, the Brain Room."

"Yes, the Brain Room," Remus answered. "Neville said Ron was attacked by a brain."

Albus frowned. Those brains were extremely dangerous. But if Neville had said it that way, surely that meant Ron was still alive – and still Ron?

"That's not good, I'll need to check up on him," he muttered, more to himself than to the young man in front of him. "Remus, could you do something else for me?"

"Of course," Remus said, almost lightly, but in his eyes Albus could see the pain.

"I need you to check all the rooms for Death Eaters," Albus said. "There might be a few heavily injured ones left behind by their fellows. Stun and bind them, and bring them out of the Department. You know you can just ask the hallway where to go, don't you?"

Remus just nodded, turned and walked out of the room.

Albus immediately turned to Alastor, who was bent over Nymphadora. There wasn't much time left. Harry and Bellatrix might already have arrived at the Atrium.

Tonks was unconscious, and Alastor's attempts to revive her didn't have any effect at all. Albus quickly looked around the room and spotted Kingsley Shacklebolt, who was injured, but was trying to sit up. Albus didn't hesitate. It was hard, but there was no other choice.

"Kingsley, could you help us, please?" he called. "We need to get Tonks and the students back in the Brain Room to the hospital wing of Hogwarts."

Kingsley scrambled to his feet, and slowly started to walk across the room. Albus turned to the captured Death Eaters. "Alastor, could you keep an eye on those for me?"

He cast a last warding spell on the Death Eaters, and was satisfied. When the Aurors would arrive, they would have a tough time, breaking all the spells surrounding the group.

Then he lifted Tonks on a stretcher and walked quickly up the stone steps, while Kingsley just reached Neville.

Nothing could have prepared Albus for the sight that met him in the Brain Room. On the floor were Luna Lovegood, conscious but not looking very well, Ginny Weasley, clutching her ankle and breathing quickly through her half-open mouth on a ghostly-white face, Hermione Granger, unconscious, and a dozen brains in a large puddle of green potion. Finally there was Ron, who looked the worst of all. His face was even whiter than his sister's, and deep welts marked his face, neck and arms. He was walking in circles, looking definitely not like Ron.

Albus quickly spoke a few words with Luna and Ginny, who didn't seem to have any permanent damage, and inspected Hermione, who would need medical care very soon to avoid permanent damage. Then he walked to Ron, who smiled at him.

"Ron," he said, "do you know where Hermione is?"

Ron's face clouded, and for a moment Albus thought nothing was wrong with him after all.

"She's lying there," Ron pointed, "but she's no fun at all, she doesn't do anything. She didn't even help me when the brain was attacking me."

Albus suspected that Ron had fought off the brain just in time, as it certainly hadn't taken over his mind, but he couldn't explain the mental state the boy was in now.

He was running late. How long would Harry be able to hold Bellatrix off? Albus quickly turned a desk into a Portkey into Hogwarts – the Headmaster was the only one who could do that – and gave his last instructions to Kingsley before running out of the Department. He assured himself that there was no way he could have arrived at the Atrium faster. The other students were also his responsibility, and it had been absolutely necessary to check on them and make the Portkey. All four of them needed to get to the Hospital Wing as fast as possible. It had been far worse than Albus had suspected.

However, he had started to question himself. The events of the evening had made him realise that he had made some grave mistakes during the past year, or maybe even earlier. If he hadn't locked up Sirius in Grimmauld Place, if he had told Harry about the prophecy before, if he had taught Harry Occlumency himself – all this damage would have been prevented.

When Albus rushed out of the lift, into the Atrium, he heard Bellatrix sobbing. He immediately realised that he had made another mistake by lingering down in the Department of Mysteries. He could only hope it was not too late.

"Master, you should know –" Bellatrix cried.

"Be quiet, Bella," Lord Voldemort said. "I shall deal with you in a moment. Do you think I have entered the Ministry of Magic to hear your snivelling apologies?"

The scene came into view. Harry was standing next to the Fountain of Brethren, and Lord Voldemort – Tom Riddle – was pointing his wand at the boy, a sobbing Bellatrix at his feet. Albus raised his own wand, and waited.

"But Master – he is here – he is below –"

Albus realised with satisfaction that Tom didn't listen to his servant. He didn't see or hear anything but Harry Potter and himself.

"I have nothing more to say to you, Potter," Tom said. "You have irked me too often, for too long. _AVADA KEDAVRA!_"

But Albus had already waved his wand during the first syllable of the curse, and the golden statue of a wizard – headless, no doubt Bellatrix's work – sprang alive, and shielded Harry from the curse on Albus' command.

"What –?" shouted Tom, looking around wildly. He finally spotted Albus. "_Dumbledore!_"

Of course, the first thing Tom did was sending a Killing Curse at Albus, but that was too easy. Albus Apparated to a spot behind Tom and took a fleeting moment to look at Tom's back. He would not, he would never attack someone with his back turned to him, not even Lord Voldemort. Instead, he waved his wand to animate the other statues in the Fountain of Brethren. He sent the witch to Bellatrix, the centaur to Tom, and the goblin and house-elf to the fireplaces, to alert the Aurors. Satisfied, Albus checked that Harry was protected by the headless wizard, and Bellatrix was taken out by the witch. He walked towards Tom, who was now standing next to the pool. The golden centaur galloped around them.

"It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom," Albus said. "The Aurors are on their way –"

"By which time I shall be gone, and you will be dead!" Tom interrupted.

Although the latter wasn't desirable, the former was exactly what Albus wanted to achieve tonight. He needed to get Harry to safety, nothing was more important.

Albus dodged a Killing Curse, and cast a Hurricane Curse, an invention of his own. He knew it would distract Tom, who didn't like being attacked with a spell unknown to him. And indeed, Tom conjured an advanced shield that ate the spell, but looked curiously at Albus over the top of his shield.

"You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?" he called. "Above such brutality, are you?"

Albus fought hard to keep his face calm. He could not let Tom know the real reason he hadn't cast a Killing Curse. "We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom." _Like you destroyed Hagrid's._ "Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit –"

"There's nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!" Tom snapped.

"You are quite wrong," Albus replied, still keeping very calm – outwardly. He had no idea how Harry would ever defeat Voldemort, but Tom did not need to know that. "Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness –"

Tom chose this moment to send another Killing Curse Albus' way, but the animated statue of the centaur took the blast, shattering in hundreds of pieces. Albus quickly conjured a flame, which wrapped itself around Tom and his shield. For a moment, he surprised Tom with it, but then the flame changed into a serpent, changing direction at once to advance on Albus.

Tom vanished. Albus quickly turned around and spotted him in the middle of the fountain, but he needed to turn back immediately to head off the snake. For a moment, he panicked, but then he sensed something very familiar near him, and a warm feeling entered his heart. He made the snake vanish, while Fawkes swallowed the Killing Curse that Tom had cast, and he waved his wand once more to make the water in the pool rise, until Tom was covered in water.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Tom was struggling in the mass of water, Bellatrix was looking fearfully at the fountain with her master, and Harry was watching the scene from behind the golden wizard. Then Tom vanished. The water fell back, Bellatrix screamed, and Harry tried to free himself from his guard.

"Stay where you are, Harry!" Albus roared, struck with fear. Tom hadn't gone, he could feel it. He was still somewhere around, although the hall seemed empty.

Suddenly, Harry fell to the ground, screaming. He clutched his scar, he was twitching uncontrollably, and then he spoke.

"Kill me now, Dumbledore ..."

Albus just stood, his wand pointed at Harry, who was clearly in agony, but he couldn't do anything. Tom would choose to leave Harry, or Harry would make him leave, there was no other way out.

"If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy ..."

Albus just watched, praying that Harry would be strong enough. Harry and Tom, they were antagonists; Tom couldn't bear staying in Harry's body for a long time. And Harry couldn't bear being possessed by Tom for a long time. The only question left was who would win. It would be Harry. It had to be Harry. Harry was a strong boy, capable of more than Tom could imagine. It had to be Harry.

And it was Harry. Suddenly, it was over. Harry was lying on the floor, his body shaking. The sight strongly reminded Albus of the way Harry had been lying in front of the maze at the end of last year. Albus faintly noticed that Tom grabbed Bellatrix and Disapparated, and that the Aurors had arrived. He rushed to Harry's side.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

"Yes," said Harry, gasping for breath. "Yeah, I'm – where's Voldemort, where – who are all these – what's –"

Albus pulled Harry up. The boy was still shaking violently, and leaned against the wall for support, but he seemed all right. Behind him, Albus heard a voice he had come to hate in the past year. Cornelius Fudge was approaching, and he sounded rather surprised at seeing Lord Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic.

"Merlin's beard – here – _here!_– in the Ministry of Magic! – great heavens above – it doesn't seem possible – my word – how can this be –?"

Albus reluctantly turned around. "If you proceed downstairs into the Department of Mysteries, Cornelius, you will find several escaped Death Eaters contained in the Death Chamber, bound by an Anti-Disapparation Jinx and awaiting your decision as to what to do with them."

He smiled slightly at seeing the surprised faces of the Aurors and the Minister, upon noticing him.

"Dumbledore!" Fudge gasped. "You – here – I – I –"

Unbelievably, even in this situation, Fudge seemed ready to order his Aurors to take Albus. Although Albus wasn't sure the Aurors would really try to take him, he said, "Cornelius, I am ready to fight your men – and win, again!" His voice raising, he continued, "But a few minutes ago you saw proof, with you own eyes, that I have been telling you the truth for a year. Lord Voldemort has returned, you have been chasing the wrong man for twelve months, and it is time you listened to sense!"

"I – don't – well –" Fudge stuttered. He looked around, but everyone just stared back to him. "Very well," he finally said. "Dawlish! Williamson! Go down to the Department of Mysteries and see ... Dumbledore, you – you will need to tell me exactly – the Fountain of Magical Brethren – what happened?" he finished incoherently.

"We can discuss that after I have sent Harry back to Hogwarts," Albus said calmly.

"Harry – _Harry Potter_?" Fudge squeaked. "He – here? Why – what's all this about?"

Albus tried to stay patient. "I shall explain everything when Harry is back at school."

He picked up the head of the statue of the wizard, and turned it into a Portkey to Hogwarts. Harry would be safely in the Headmaster's office, while Albus was talking to Fudge.

"Now see here, Dumbledore!" Fudge sputtered. "You haven't got authorisation for that Portkey! You can't do things like that right in front of the Minister of Magic, you – you –"

Albus glared at him. He proceeded to tell Fudge in no uncertain terms to remove Dolores Umbridge from Hogwarts, and allow Hagrid to return to the school. Then he offered Fudge half an hour of his time to explain the events of the night. It would be enough; he refused to waste even more time on this man.

"Letters addressed to the Headmaster will find me," he finished, almost sneering.

Fudge looked like he was about to faint, but Albus didn't care. He handed Harry the golden head, and activated the Portkey. Satisfied, he watched Harry disappear and return to safety.

**Author's Note: This is the final chapter. I hope you enjoyed the journey through the Department of Mysteries in ten parts. Thanks for reading! I may create a few more parts as time goes on (5 max) but we'll see! If you want a particular one (excluding Harry, of course), just leave a review. I'm already planning on doing Bellatrix, so 4 more slots available. These 5 other chapters will probably be lot shorter than these previous 5, so please don't be surprised That's it. Hope you enjoy this fic, I won't mark it as complete, but please don't expect me to update quickly. :) ~ZRS**


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